Playing Card Deck

"Stick cards" or Gun Pai 棍牌. This type of deck contains money cards with three suits. There are typically 126 cards (4 x 30 + 6) making up a complete deck. This consists of 36 different cards. Of these, there are 27 across three suits: 1-9 of cash, 1-9 of strings (of cash) and 1-9 of myriads (of strings) (wan), and then three additional court cards: 'qianwan' (1000 myriads), 白花 zhihua (white flower) with 福 Fu in the center, and the Wang Ying card with 王英 at the top. These 30 cards are quadrupled and additionally there are six extra cards, jokers, funtioning as "wild" cards. The six extra joker cards feature: 時千(時遷) Shi Qian (the flea on a drum) and 朝蓋 (晁盖) Chao Gai (the tower-shifting heavenly king) from the 水滸傳 Sui hu zhuan (Water Margin), and 王道 Wang Dao, 許仙 Xu Xian, 白蛇 Bai She (the white snake) and 青蛇 Qing She (the blue snake), from the 白蛇传 Baishejing Ji (Tale of the White Snake). In the suits of cash and strings the value is depicted by the actual number of coins or strings of coins. In the suit of myriads the value is written out in the top of the cards. The myriads suit also features portraits of commanders from the Shui hu zhuan (Water Margin Story). There is a name with the portrait on qiwan (7 of myriads): 秦明 Qin Ming. On the wuwan (5 of myriads) is 李逵 Li Kui, recognizable by his blackened face and the battle axe in his right hand. One the bawan (8 of myriads) is 朱仝 Zhu Tong identified by the smaller figure in the lower part of the card depicting the son of the magistrate of Canzhou. The erwan (2 of myriads) has 七元 'qi yuan'on it. This is not the name of a Water Margin commander and the meaning is unknown. In other packs of cards additionally on sanwan [3 of myriads] is the text 六元 'liu yuan'. Red marks appear on the 9s and the white flower card has one red dot. Qianwan and Wang Ying have two red dots and the wild card jokers have three red dots. Chao Gai has an additional red stamp in the top margin of the card. It reads: Zhenxingde ji 真興德記 "Trademark of True Flourishing Virtue". The cards have double indices in the top and bottom margins so that both the value and the suit can be read from them. The backs are tan with a square motif printed in black. This deck has 125 rectangular playing cards since one of the qianwan cards is missing. The faces are printed in black on white within a rectangular border. The endless knot, canopy, wheel, artemisia (?) leaf, umbrella, four legged animal, yin and yang and fish appear on various cards.

From Culin publication: "From Peking. Four packets of thirty cards and six jokers. Described as Wai p'ai - i.e. 'cards from the cantonment' of Tientsin. Index marks for sutis and pips and for White Flower, Red Flower, and two of the six jokers. The jokers are Shi Ts'in, Wong To, Chiu K'oi, Ts'ing She, Pak She, and Hu Sin. These, which were put up outside the pack, are the heroes and heroines of certain tales. The first is a character in the Shwui Hu Chuen (Water's Marge), a Robin Hood romance which furnishes names for the figures in the suits of myriads. The last three - 'Blue Snake,' 'White Snake,' and 'Fairy Hu' - are taken from 'The Tale of the White Snake.' Total, 126."