Playing cards have had a rich history, they were arguably the best source of entertainment before mobile phones and computers were invented. Cards have been used in things such as prison escapes, they are actually pretty famous for being one of the best games to be played in prison. In a lot of parts of the world, playing cards during certain holidays is a pretty strong tradition. Even after the invention of the internet the same game just became virtual and is associated with some of the most popular online and offline like Poker Online Terpercaya. There are some very interesting things associated with playing cards which you probably didn’t know before, let’s take a look at them.
PRISONER OF WAR
This might come as shock to a lot of people but playing cards played a dual purpose for prisoner of war during world war 2. The first use is associated with passing the time in prisons. As you might have guessed, there is not a lot of things to do in prison and playing cards was and is one of the best ways to pass time and maintain your sanity inside a prison. The other use is not really known by a lot of people. The US government during world war 2 partnered with a card manufacturing company to come up with a type of card which would peel off when wet to reveal a map of the surrounding areas to help the prisoners escape from the concentration camps and prisons. It’s not known how these cards were distributed inside the camp or prisoners especially considering they were in another country, but it is still cool to know the spy use of playing cards.
THE OLDEST CARDS
One of the oldest set of cards surprisingly is in the US, currently it’s in the Metropolitan museum of art in New York city but it has an interesting history associated with it. The cards were originally from Netherlands from the 15th century and looking at the condition of the cards it can be ascertained that they were not played with a lot. The cards were sold to some collector in 1975 for about 3000$ and within 5 years he sold it again to the Met for about 135,000$. Talk about a profit. The cards are also hand painted which add to the overall appeal of them.
CASINO SECURITY
The amount of security measures that casinos take to prevent cheating is more than the amount of security measures in most of the prisons. The reason why cards in casinos are made from 100% plastic is to prevent cheating, plastic is much more difficult to mark as compared to paper. The other reason is that plastic lasts more, but I don’t think that matters as a deck is usually replaced within 12 hours of being in use. A fresh cards deck has to be signed off by the pit bosses before being allowed to be used.
