"Blue Owl" lenormand

 Lenormand J.M.C. "Blue Owl"  Koningsfurt Urania (i.e. Cartamundi), 36c. 

This deck is one of a category of decks that are called "Lenormand" decks: cards specially produced for fortune telling purposes. As many of my readers are unlikely to be knowledgable in fortune-telling, but would nonetheless be interested in knowing more about these cards, I have generated a short introduction to them. 

These cards are named after the 18th century french diviner Madam Lenormand. However( and this is the consensus in the divinatory community) these cards only appeared after her death.  The earliest antecedent of these cards was a set of "coffee cards" published in 1796. https://marykgreer.com/2013/07/12/a-new-lenormand-deck-discovery/, and subsequently taken up by German publishers. 

These cards are a French-suited deck of 36 cards, [i.e. 6-10, J, Q, J, A in each suit] structured identically as those which are used to play Jass. 

The playing-card motifs are consigned to a small corner of each of the cards. The vast majority of each card is taken up by a symbol. It is this symbol that is most immediately important to divinatory purposes. Indeed, some decks omit the playing-card figure entirely.  

There are 36 symbols, one for each card of the deck. Unlike the exotic trumps of the tarot, these symbols are perfectly mundane. Examples include, the Lilly, the Scythe, The Key, the book, and the Dog. A full list of them (along with basic divinatory meanings) can be found here. https://labyrinthos.co/blogs/learn-tarot-with-labyrinthos-academy/an-introduction-to-lenormand-cards-plus-lenormand-card-meaning-list

 Each card in this deck is numbered continually from 1 to 36, although not in the manner that seems logical. Here is the layout 

There are several Lenormand decks made by playing-card companies. This is the most common, made by Koningsfurt Urania, the arm of cartamundi that produces divinatory decks.  It is typically  called the "Blue Owl" from the design of its back

As mentioned above, the pips of the cards are consigned to a small corner of the deck; Nonetheless, they are still legible; they show a french-suited deck that has no indices. The author has been unable to conclusively identify what pattern these cards are of. 

The number answering to each cards is fund in a circle on the left-hand corner. Some cards have numbers in both circles; others, like this, have only one number, the other taken up with monogram "M" 

These cards are made fairly small- much smaller than both poker and European-style decks. There is a pragmatic reason behind this. Many of the "spreads" used in  fortune-telling involve spreading the cards out on a surface. In one case, the "Grand tableau", all 36 cards are spread out. Hence, the cards must be made as small as possible, so they can take up less space. 

The aces of Hearts and spades play a special role in this fortune-telling system. They are respectively, the Man and the woman. These cards represent the person who is setting the question to the oracle, the man if the :querent is a man, and the woman if the querent is a woman. By examining the cards that immediately surround this card, predictions may be made on what would happen to the querent 

The box. The left hand side shows the back of the cards, which depicts a Blue Owl. It is this feature that gives the cards their common name 

Four suited money cards 1: Kitty cards (MaoMao pai)

[Kitty cards], Jingzhong Tianzi No. 2065 , 36c.
[貓貓牌] 進忠天子 No. 2065, 36副
These cards were made in Chongzhou , Sichuan.
There is almost no information about this deck online. The Chinese wikipedia article considers this deck to be a kind of Six Tiger card, which comes from Chongzhou, Sichuan. I have doubts if the cards are actually used to play the game of 'six tigers'. However, there is nothing in the structure of the deck that prevents you from doing so. The name literally translates as 'kitty cards'. Before you ask, yes, Doggy cards do exist.

The suit of tens 拾. 

The first thing to note about the cards, is their central illustration. Each card has  rather elegant line drawing of a flower. The suit-symbols of the cards are less stylized than other cards of their family; they still bear some resemblance to the normal forms of the chinese numerals. 

The card labelled '1' in the above illustration seems to have the inscription 歪子- "Slanted child"

That card has the maker's telephone number on it 

The suit of 贯, or Guan

Note the red mark on the Nine of each suit. 

The suit of 索, or strings. 

The suit- character is so stylized the author cannot identify it with certainty. 

The suit of cash, or 钱. 

The character has been abbreviated to 戋, the right-hand portion of the full character. 

The card labelled 1 seems to be the ace in this suit, but the author cannot identify it with certainty. Like the card in the suit of tens, it has the maker's telephone number written on it. The deck featured on the Chinese wiki article has a maker's name in its stead.  The maker's name is Wang Yi 王亿. From an examination of the deck, we find it is identical to the present deck, the maker's name excepted. 

Australian toy cards 2: Hearts

"Hearts" Anon, 36c+1,
This deck was purchased as a set of three in a remote town in Australia. These cards display several unusual features. These arise from a need for economy, and attractiveness. This deck is by far the most unusual of the three.
  Hearts is a game that is typically played with a normal deck of 52 cards. The aim of the game is to avoid capturing cards with the suit of hearts, and the queen of spades. However, it appears that printing a full set of 52 cards was well beyond the budget of its maker. A deck of 36 cards was all that they could afford. So what was one to do?

One solution would be to stick to the structure of a standard deck of cards. Instead of 13 ranks in 4 suits, print 9 ranks in a 4 suits. That would result in a deck of 36 cards.
But if one did that, the scoring system would no longer work. There would not be enough cards.
Instead, the maker chose to print a deck with Three Suits .

 Each of the three suits contains 12 cards..The three suits are clover-leaves (seen above), yellow diamonds and Red hearts.   

 Apart from the indices, all the cards of each suit are identical. In the middle of each card, is a cutesy cartoon animal. A pig for the clovers, a bear for the diamonds, and a rabbit for the hearts.  

The suit of hearts, It is interesting to observe, that the cards are all double-faced. 

The additional card, known as the "Jinx". This card takes the place of the Queen of spades in the normal game of hearts. But because the card is on itself, the resulting deck has 37 instead of 36 cards. This might playing the game somewhat complex...  

The rules for the game are given on a card, printed with this deck. I transcribe it below.

The heart deck has three suit ( hearts, clovers and diamonds) of twelve cards each, including a number 6 star card which is the Jinx card. 

The object of the game is to avoid taking tricks containing the hearts or the Jinx card. 

1. Dealer shuffles and deals one card at a time, face down. an equal number of cards to each player. The remaining cards, if any are placed face down, and taken in by the player who takes the first trick. 

2. Each player selects two cards from his hand, and passes them to the person on his left. 

3. Dealer starts the [play by leading any card except a heart. after the frist trick is taken, any suite [sic] including hearts may be led. 

Play moves to th left, everyone following suite. If the player cannot follow suite, he may discard 3 hearts, the jinx card, or any card he chooses.

Highest card of the suite [led] takes the trick.

The player taking the trick with the highest card leads a card for the next round. 

Winner: is the player with the least points.

Each heart counts one point, and the jinx card counts 6 points. 

Note: Contrast this scoring system with the standard game. Each heart scores one point, the queen of spades 13 points. 

The international pattern VI- Dal negro

Dal negro - "Poker 36" - 36c.
In our journey through the internatioal patterns, we shall now proced towards cards made by European makers. The most famous of these is the belgian cartamundi, but I shall now show a  very curiosus deck made by the Italian maker Dal negro.
  This deck is  unusual, for it does not have 52 cards in it. Rather, it has 36 cards, breaking to 9 cards in each suit, viz;

     6 ,7 ,8 ,9 ,10 , Jack  Queen,  King , Ace

In  europe, as some of my readers may know, it is normal to have decks to contain less than 52 cards, but it is very unusual to have a deck of the international pattern treated as such. One can only wonder what games are played with it. 

The deck aside,  the cards are not very unusual.

I note the similarity to the waddingtons deck ( see http://anthonylesq.blogspot.com/2012/03/international-pattern-part-i.html)

II- note the ace of hearts. it bears a little stamp that bears the makers name. this feature is perculiar to european makers.
III- note the Jack of clubs. along the middle of the figure, is a band that bears the maker's name. This feature is almost never found in Englush made cards, save the earliest ones.

swiss playing cards "Jass" ( Müller)

Swiss playing cards, AG Müller, 36c.
In switzerland, two kinds of playing cards are used. there is one, with french suits, and another, with the native swiss suits, described here.
 The native swiss playing cards are a very interesting deck to say the least. the cards maintain some ancient features that were one present in german playing cards, but now long gone.
It has been said that the swiss cardmakers were so conservative, a man from the 15th c. will be quite at home with the playing cards of 1950s schaffhausen.
Things of note:
1- the tens have been replaced by banners, a feature found in the most primitive of german cards ( fith card from right in all of the pictures)
2 the court cards have their ranks spelled out (  viz; KÖING, OBER, UNDER)

for the french suited pattern mentioned earlier, see:

http://anthonylesq.blogspot.com/2012/01/piquet-swiss-french-pattern-muller.html

"schafkopf" ( bavarian pattern playing cards, stralsund type)

Barvarian pattern playing cards by F.X schmidt. 36 c.
this version of the bavarian pattern is called the 'stralsund' type, so called because it was made in stralsund. http://anthonylesq.blogspot.com/2011/10/bavarian-pattern-playing-cards-munchen.html
there are very small diffrences between this and the München type, most naotbly in the ober of acorns, who carries a triangular shield here insted of a oval one in the München type. also note the 10 of hearts, whos central pips are green & yellow, unlike the stralsund's plain red.