[Larger Image]

Early Italian Tarots
Pip Cards of the Money Suit

67 Ace of Money
68 Deuce of Money
69 Trey of Money		 70 Four of Money
71 Five of Money
72 Six of Money

In 1659 a curious pamphlet was published called “Shuffling, Cutting, and Dealing in a Game at Pickquet,” a political squib which used the terms of the game to describe the politicians.

Hamlet says: “How absolute the Knave is. We must speak by the card or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken notice of it, the age is grown so picked (piqued).”

As the French cards, with the game of Piquet for which they were invented, were introduced into England in the time of Edward IV, it is possible that Hamlet used a familiar term when he declared the age was picked, as this is an expression frequently used in the game.

It is generally supposed that Euchre is a variant of the French game Ecarté, the name of which is taken from one of the rules, meaning “to put away or discard.” In the United States, Euchre was adopted about 1840, appearing first in the Middle West. It was for this game that the Joker was reinstated in the pack, a card that at first was a blank one left imprinted, but its adoption was accomplished very slowly, and it did not change the games or completely dominate the packs until within the last few years.

Others assume that the game had a nautical derivation and was invented by old salts, as the names given to the commanding cards have reference to the forward anchors of a ship.

In the year 1870 the first celebrated and authentic illustrated history of the game of Euchre was published by Bret Harte:

Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a hand;
It was Euchre, and the same
He did not understand;
But he smiled as he sat by the table
With a smile that was childlike and bland.