Monday, 9 September 2019

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 , 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. 

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