History of card decks

card used as one of a set for playing card games

thumb|Various Ganjifa cards from Dashavatara set Ganjifa, Ganjapa or Gânjaphâ, is a card game and type of playing cards that are most associated with Persia and India. After Ganjifa cards fell out of use in Iran before the twentieth century, India became the last country to produce them. The form prevalent in Odisha is Ganjapa.

thumb|As-Nas cards|320px

two sets of fifty 15th-century Italian cards with engraving

Minchiate, also known as Germini or Tarocchi fiorentini (Florentine tarot), is an early 16th-century card game, originating in Florence, Italy. It is no longer widely played. The term can also refer to the special deck of 97 playing cards used in the game. The deck is similar to the conventional tarot cards, but contains an expanded suit of trumps. The game was similar to but more complex than tarocchi. The minchiate represents a Florentine variant on the original game.

Madiao (), also ma diao, ma tiu or ma tiao, is a late imperial Chinese trick-taking gambling card game, also known as the game of paper tiger. The deck used was recorded by Lu Rong in the 15th century and the rules later by Pan Zhiheng and Feng Menglong during the early 17th century. Korean poet Jang Hon (1759-1828) wrote that the game dates back to the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). It continued to be popular during the Qing dynasty until around the mid-19th century. It is played with 40 cards, and four players.

thumb|right|150px|Die Nerryn ("The Fool") Hofämterspiel ("Courtly Household Cards"), one of the earliest packs of playing cards on record preserved in its entirety with all 48 cards intact, is a major 15th-century medieval handmade deck commissioned by Ladislaus the Posthumous, King of Hungary and Bohemia and Duke of Austria from 1453 to 1457. It was found among the great collection of art treasures of Archduke Ferdinand II of Tirol in castle Ambras, Austria, together with another called Ambraser Hofjagdspiel. Their heraldic suits represent, to an extent, "the political and dynastic relationsh

Tujeon () are the traditional playing cards of Korea used in the latter half of the Joseon dynasty. They are also known as tupae ().