Playing-card review 1: Piatnik 1935, Carta Mundi Versailles

As a new feature I'm going to review playing-cards. There are quite a few different packs available and finding information about them is hard. So, here's something and more to come, especially if I get any encouragement.

Piatnik Tarock 54 Blatt Nr. 1935. This is an Austrian-style 54-card Tarock pack. That is, 22 trumps and 32 other cards. As usual, there are king, queen, knight and jack in each suit and 7-10 in black suits and 1-4 in red suits. Cards have no indices, but the court cards are easy to tell from each other and with pip cards, the lack of indices is only problem for the black cards. In most games the pip cards are almost completely insignificant, so it often makes no difference whatsoever whether you hold eight or nine of clubs.

The trumps have Roman numerals. To me this seems more authentic for some reason than just numbers. The pictures show vaguely Eastern European countryside life. The cards are printed well and pictures have beautiful colours. The cards are slightly oversized compared to regular Bridge or Poker cards and of typical Piatnik quality.

This pack is identical to pack number 1936 except for the backs. 1936 has a subtle line pattern, this has baroque ornaments in blue and white. 1936 is my current favourite pack for 54 card games, and for all practical reasons 1935 is just as good.

Carta Mundi Jeu de Tarot - 78 Cartes. This pack has no identification number or other details, but the back pattern is called Versailles so if you search for that, you should be able to find a whole family of backs with the same design. The pattern is blue and gold floral design, but apparently there is also a red and gold variation available. I'm not sure if there's a red and gold tarot pack, though.

In any case, this is a full 78 card pack, that is 22 trumps and 56 cards otherwise. All cards bear indices in four corners; court cards have French indices (R, D, C and V). The trumps have what is apparently a French standard pictures, but here the pictures look better than in the other French tarot pack I have. The colours are better. The trumps are numbered with Arabic numerals.

Included with the pack are the rules and a scoring card for French Tarot. The card quality is excellent. This is a very good pack for playing almost any Tarot game and my standard suggestion to people who wish to buy exactly one Tarot pack and thus want maximum versatility.