Article: History is in cards at new museum

CINCINNATI People have been playing cards for some 600 years, but it hasn't always been easy, according to Margery B. Griffith, curator of the newly opened Playing Card Museum here.

The first recorded mention of playing cards in history, Griffith says, is a listing in the treasury accounts of King Charles VI of France for the year 1392 of 56 sols paid to Jacquemin Gringonneur, an artist, for designing three decks of gilt-ornamented cards.

Then, five years later, in 1397, she related, the chief magistrate of Paris issued an ordinance banning card playing, as well as some other games, "excepting only on holidays."

The early popularity of card playing and the recurrent proscriptions on ...

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