Four suited money cards 2-- Six Red cards 六紅牌

'Three A Strip cards' [Six red cards] Ningpo three A Group co. Ltd.  36c.
三A 條牌[六紅牌], 寧波三A集團有限公司 -- 36副

Some readers are already familliar with the Hakka Six tiger cards. These belong to a family of Chinese money suited cards that have four suits, instead of the usual three.

The deck featured here is called  六紅牌 Liu Hong Pai --Six Red cards. They are also known as 狗兒牌 Gou'er pai -- Doggy cards. Before you ask -- Kitty cards （貓貓牌, maomao pai) do exist. 

These cards are used in Leshan, Sichuan 樂山, 四川. The four suits are  拾 Shi, tens ; 貫 Guan "Strings of a thousand coins" 束, Shu, "strings" and 毛 Mao, "coins". The Chinese Wikipedia Article  describes the cards. The cards are used to play a game called 扯馬股, The Wikipedia article also notes the game is played with a stripped-down "Poker" [i.e. Anglo-American] deck. For such a game, only the Ace-9 of each suit are used.

拾
The shapes of the suits are extremely stylized. The author cannot identify the names of the suits with absolute certainty.

The Ace (?) has the character printed in red, rather than Black. The characters on it seem to be a distorted version of  百元  = Bai Yuan = Hundred Dollars?

貫

The suit sign looks like a scowling man or some pedestal. Note the curiously shaped Nine, which is printed in red. It resembles an elephant's trunk or a person's leg. 

束

The figure of the suit resembles a fish. Again, the Nine is printed in red. 

毛？

The author cannot identify the suit with certainty. The nine is in this instance, printed in black. The card labelled "1" he thinks is the Ace. However, he is not sure of its identity, or what are the highly stylized characters are. 

Here are the numerals of the deck. 

Doll cards 娃兒牌 Part 1: The Cards

We now come to a kind of playing card, which is vanishingly rare. Used in Sichuan, it bears the name of  娃娃牌"Wawa pai"- Doll cards  or 娃兒牌 " Wa'er pai" -- Dolly cards.

The earliest mention of them I have came across is in the  "Catalogue of the collection of playing cards bequeathed to the Trustees of the British museum by the late Lady Charlotte Schreiber", printed in 1901. The deck is tersely described:

No. 32. From Chungking. Oiled cards, red backs. Consists of eight each of the eight characters contained in a familiar prayer : — 

 壽 比 南 山 福 如 東 海 

That is, May you have " Long life like the southern hills, happiness as (the broad) east sea." There are in addition eight blanks, bringing the total number of cards in the pack up to 72. 


N.B. The Chinese usually write the phrase in reversed order: 福如東海，壽比南山 -- Fu Ru Donghai, Shou Bi Nanshan, i.e. Happiness as the broad East Sea, Long Life like the Southern Hills. A word-by word translation is as follows:

Note; there are two ways of writing the sentence, in Simplified and Traditional Chinese. Traditional Chinese is used in the Catalog, Simplified in the cards featured below.

 I will present two decks of cards in this post. They seem to be the only types available at present.

1: "Wa'er pai" .Taizhou Yunping plastic playing-card factory. 72c.
1: 娃儿牌-- 台州市路桥 云平塑料牌厂. 72 副

This deck is made by a company in Luqiao, a town in Taizhou. Taizhou is in Central China, and is quite a distance away from Chongqing /Chungking, which the British Museum cards are from. The Chinese Wikipedia article on the cards says they are used in Chongqing and and Sichuan.  

This deck, and the British Museum Deck are similar in structure. There are Nine subjects in both deck.  Eight of these subjects are Chinese characters that make up the phrase  壽比南山 福如東海 The ninth subject [ in my deck] is a card that depicts the figure of a child, called in Chinese the 娃兒"Wa'er" -- Dolly.There are eight copies of each card, yielding a deck of 72 cards.  One of the eight copies of each subject is marked with the picture of a doll/ child . Cards so marked play a role in the game.

The "Plain" cards, arranged in order. The cards themselves use the Simplified version of the Chinese Characters. The Traditional forms of the characters ( Used in the Catalogue ) are shown below each card. The right-most card, with a human figure is the " Dolly" card. These cards are made of plastic. 

The Eight "Marked" cards. As you can see, each card bears the motif of a child in the middle. In addition, each of the Chinese Characters has a small quatrefoil in the top-right corner. 

On the Marked dolly , a large Chinese seal replaces the human figure, which is placed in the middle of the card. The words on the seal, written in the archaic seal-script are "太平天國" -- Taiping Tianguo-- Tai Ping Heavenly Kingdom.  

2: Wawa pai. [anon] 72c.
2: [娃娃牌]:72 副

The structure of this deck, and the above deck are identical. The main difference is in the material the cards are made of. The cards in this deck are made of a varnished/Lacquered fabric. The manufacturer states the fabric is silk. The faces are a beige colour, and their backs are plain red, in which brushstrokes can be seen. When the cards are new, they are heavily impregnated with a sort of white powder to prevent them from sticking. Cleaned of the powder ( which the manufacturer says is gypsum) the cards look like this:

The Plain suit. Like the cards above, they use the Simplified Chinese Characters. The Dolly card ( far right) contains a much more elaborate human figure than the one featured above. It shows a child bearing a vase of flowers. Also note the cards have square corners. 

The marked cards. The cards are structurally similar to those in deck 1. They possess a human figure in the middle, and the characters have a mark. In this deck, however, the mark is a star/asterisk unlike the quatrefoil of the deck above. 

The marked Dolly card ( Far right) also has a "Seal", but the characters are now written in a more normal font, imitating handwriting . The human figure on that card is missing its face; such errors/vagaries in printing are frequently encountered in the deck. 

I shall describe the game played with these cards in another post. In summary, the game involves forming melds of cards. It resembles mahjong, but it has its own perculiar scoring system.  Melds involving the marked cards score extra points. 

Character cards

Suliao Zipai (Plastic Character cards), Xin Bin ,  80+1c,
 塑料字牌, 鑫宾 80+1副

Yet another of the character cards. Although not explicitly known as such, the cards are probably manufactured to play the game 'Two-Seven-Ten", like one featured earlier in this blog.

The suit of large characters  When compared to other examples, the characters are printed in a font that is almost identical to normal print. 

The small suit.

The card marked A is 底換-- Di Huan.-- "Bottom/ Switch" 

Isao Umebayashi's article on the game Two-Ten-Seven ( The Playing-Card volume XXV No 4.), shows an image of a similar deck, which had a card with the same words (底/換) as the present card, except the words were written on opposite ends of the card. 

Mr. Umebayashi and his translator (George Hatton ) could not find the mandarin pronunciations of the characters. They had to make do with the Japanese and Cantonese pronunciations. 
The author remedies the defect below: 

 底=Soko (Japanese) = Tai (Cantonese)= Di (Mandarin)= Bottom
換= Kan (Japanese) = Oon (Cantonese) = Huan (Mandarin) = Switch

Cards that possess the extra bottom/switch card now seem to be quite rare. 

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. 

Joss paper Mahjong

華雅麻將, 144c.
Haoya Majiang ("Luxurious Mahjong")144c.

Now, a set of playing-cards with a difference. This is a mahjong set, purchased in 2018 in Singapore. However, The author remembers such sets being produced around the year 2014, which he subsequently lost.

 Unlike most mahjong sets, this is not intended for the living. It is rather intended for the dead. This majhong set is an example of "Joss paper", paper objects intended to be burnt as offerings to the ancestors and spirits.

Effort has not been spared in the production of such an ephemeral set. Each "tile" is a small box made of folded card. Becuase they are made of printed paper,  the manufacturer can be more creative in designing the tiles.

There are 144 tiles in total, but their distrubution is extremely erratic. A standard set of mahjong tiles has exactly 4 copies of each tile, but in this set, some tiles can have as few as 2 copies and others as many as 6. The exact distribution is as follows:

Rank Suit	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
萬 Myriads	3	6	2	2	4	5	7	4	2
竹 Bamboos	2	5	7	3	4	5	5	2	2
筒 Coins	6	6	4	3	3	3	5	3	4
Other cards
中· Red Dragon	白 White Dragon	發 Green Dragon	東 East	南 South	西 West	北 North	花 Flowers
2	9	5	3	4	3	3	8

The Suit of coins. From Right to left, the 1-9 of coins . The furthest tile on the left is the 白板, Bai ban ( lit "White board")  conventionally known as the White dragon in English. 

 Because the tiles are small boxes of printed paper, the manufacturer can make them much fancier than the ordinary sort. Note the small coloured border surrounding each of the tiles-- Engraving such a border on each tile would be prohibitively expensive. 

The Suit of Bamboos. From Right to left, the 1-9 of bamboos. The 1 of bamboos is a bird.  The furthest tile on the left is the 红中 , Hong Zhong, Literally Red Center, conventionally known as the Red dragon in English. 

The 1 of bamboos is depicted as a scarlet Macaw. Compare this with the much more stylized versions found Here and here and Here. Apart from that, the bamboos look much like those on convntional decks

 The Suit of Myriads. From Right to left, the 1-9 of myriads  
The furthest tile on the left is the 青發, Qing fa, Literally Green prosperity, conventionally known as the green dragon in English. 

Top Row: Flowers (1) : L-R Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter

Middle row - Flowers (2) -- L-R Plum, Orchid, Chrysanthemum, and bamboo

Bottom row: The Winds - L-R East, South, West, North

Most Mahjong sets contain 'Flowers" These are extra tiles, which act as bonuses.The medium of printing offers a further opportunity for elaboration, with gaudy stockart replacing the stylized flowers of ordinary sets. 

Note the fancy rainbow effect on the winds. (bottom row). Most sets of mahjong cards (intended for actual use as opposed to an offering) follow the tiles very closely, even though (as we can see here) it is easy for fancy effects to be made in printing. Perhaps because it is precisely because it is an offering, that the makers can get away with making it so gaudy. 

The above two images show the box the tiles come in , with and without the lid. Like the tiles themselves, the box is made of paper, and intended to be burnt along with the tiles. 

The manufacturer has also provides some paper jetons and a wind indicator, along with a pair of dice (also of paper).

In addition to the mahjong set, a box of playing-cards is provided for the added amusement of the spirits. Alas, the box is empty, and contains no cards. 

From the side, it is easy to see how the tiles are constructed-- Small boxes of paper. You can also see the yellow-coloured backs of the tiles. Prior to the invention of plastic, majhong tiles were made of bone laminated to bamboo. The yellow colour represents the bamboo. Plastic tiles also have this feature-- their backs are of a different colour than their faces. 

Shang Da Ren cards 2 - Hubei

"Shashi Excellent Shang Da Ren cards" , Shashi, 96c.
《沙石精品上大人》,沙石, 96 副

These cards are popularly used in Wuhan, a place in Hubei. Unlike the cards featured previously These cards have a variant form of the text. The text is identical to the standard version, except the last line/ This reads Fu Lu Shou 福祿壽 "Fortune, Rank and Longevity" instead of the usual Ke Zhi Li 可知禮 "And hence understand courtesy and manners" . Decks that possess such an alteration are called 'Fu Lu Shou cards"; indeed, a game bears this name

The altered text thus reads as follows:

Ch	Pinyin	Translation, after Hans Steinmüller
上大人	Shang da ren	His greatness,
孔乙己	Kong Yi Ji	Confucius,
化三千	Hua San Qian	has taught three thousand children,
七十士	Qi Shi Shi	of which Seventy became virtuous scholars.
爾小生	Er Xiao Shen	A young scholar like you,
八九子	Ba Jiu Zi	should study from eight or Nine sages,
往作仁	Wang zuo ren	should learn to be benevolent,
福祿壽	Ful Lu Shou	Fortune, Rank, Longevity"

N.B. The author has altered The last line of Hans Steinmüller's translation to reflect the Deck's composition. 

It is tempting to read the altered last line, as describing the benefits of being benevolent. Or it could be an attempt to inject an added layer of auspiciousness to the cards.

N.B. The numbers are ordered from Right to Left 

1:上   2:大   3:人   4:孔  5:乙   6:己

The First Six cards. The most notable feature of the cards, is they are coloured. The colours follow a consistent pattern-- Red for the first character of each line, Green for the second, and black for the third. 

The other notable feature of this deck in particular are the 'indices' In the top left-hand corner, rendering the cards in a more legible font. This is rather helpful. Note the great variance on the way the character on card 4 ("Confucius")  is written, and its standard form 孔. 

 7:化   8:三   9:千 10:七   11:十   12 :士   

The next six cards. Note card 8 ("Three"), written in a manner that suggests brushstrokes. 

13:尔(=爾) 14:小 15:生   16: 八   17 :九  18 :子

Card No. 13 ('You') is written using the cursive form of the character 爾. 

19: 佳 20: 作 21:仁 22:福 23:祿  24:壽

The last two lines. Cards 22-23 are particularly stylized. 

As mentioned above, the last three characters read "Fortune, Rank and Longevity" instead of the usual "And hence understand courtesy and manners“。 

The box contains the delightful inscription

严禁賭博

仅供娛乐

Yan Jin Dubo
Jin Gong Yu Le

Gambling strictly prohibited;
For leisure only

Four colour cards [3] Guangshui Cards

[four colour cards] Anon, 112c, China
《四色牌》112副
This deck comes from Guangshui, 廣水 a city in Hubei 湖北,

The red and white suits. The first thing to note is the form the characters take. They have become extremely stylized. My transcriptions into standard font are seen below, as well as their English equivalents. As for the Valet and Soldier, I am not certain about their identification, and they may have been transposed. 

The backs of the cards (A) are plain, grey cardboard. Note, that in the white suit the cards have a small tinge of red on their narrow edge. 

The green and Yellow suit. For a comparison, see here,"Hokkien"  "Double Phoenix" and  Singaporean  Cards. 

Note that all the characters in the four suits are identical in this deck. 

The Chinese Wikipedia has an Article about the cards, and the game played with them. 

[Money suited cards], "Everybody prosper"

[Money suited cards],  "Everybody prosper-- 120c. 

大家發， 120c. 

These cards are money-suited cards. They are relatively smaller than other examples of the genre (9x2.5cm).  They are used in Jining (濟寧/济宁) in Shandong (Shantung), China. These cards bear a similarity to the Ceki cards of Southeast Asia. 

The Suit of Coins. From Right to left, are the Ace, to Nine. 

The suit of coins is especially similar to the Ceki deck-- Note the leaf on the 7 of coins, and 

There is one extra card. (A). I do not know what the Chinese call it. It is superficially similar to the ace of coins. 

The Suit of Strings. The strings are bulbous in form.

Like decks previously featured here [ vide "Chik Kee Cards" , Nantong pattern ], the various ranks possess a form of index system, in the form of shapes cut into the card's black borders. 

The Suit of myriads, The characters are less abstract than the cards in the ceki deck, but still fairly stylized, somewhat resembling masks.  Unlike other cards of this genre, the personages are named. They are characters from the Water Margin. The characters are: 

9 -- Song Jiang, leader of the 108 outlaws

8-- Zhu Tong.
7-- Tai Ming
6-- Li Hou
5-- Li Kuei
4-- Zi jin
3--  Da Dao
2-- Hua Rong
1-- Yan Qing

The card marked C is the 老千Lao Qian-- Old Thousand. The character depicted is Shui Qing 水青