United States Playing Card Company brand of cards, introduced in 1885. The typical Bicycle deck is a standard deck of cards consisting of 52 traditional French-suited playing cards, two jokers, an information card, and a card describing poker ranks. As with most decks, the first standard card of the deck is the uniquely stylized ace of spades. The Bicycle trademark is usually also printed on the ace of spades. The type number of a Bicycle deck can be found both on the bottom of the deck box and on the stone of the joker artwork. Bicycle cards have a textured 'air cushion' finish for improved
Playing card c. 1860 as a third trump, the "imperial" or "best bower", which ranked higher than the other two "bowers". The name of the card is believed to derive from "juker", a variant name for euchre. The earliest reference to a joker functioning as a wild card dates to 1875 with a variation of poker. Contemporary playing cards are grouped into three broad categories based on the suits they use: French, Latin, and Germanic. Latin suits are used in the closely related Spanish and Italian formats. The Swiss-German suits are distinct enough to merit their subcategory. Excluding jokers and tarot trumps,