Spanish playing cards (10-12). Since the mid-20th century, they have usually been sold with two "comodines" (Jokers), for a total of 50 cards. Stripped decks have 40 cards and lack ranks 8, 9 and "comodines". The popularity of the stripped deck is due to game of Ombre, which became a craze throughout Europe during the 17th century. The Spanish suits closely resemble Italian-suited cards as both were derived from the Arab cards. The four suits are "bastos" (clubs), "oros" (literally "golds", that is, golden coins), "copas" (cups) and "espadas" (swords). Unlike the suits found in northern Italy, Spanish swords are straight and the
Zener cards the experimenter picks up a card in a shuffled pack, observes the symbol, and records the answer of the person being tested, who would guess which of the five designs is on the card. The experimenter continues until all the cards in the pack are tested. Poor shuffling methods can make the order of cards in the deck easier to predict and the cards could have been inadvertently or intentionally marked and manipulated. In his experiments, J. B. Rhine first shuffled the cards by hand but later decided to use a machine for shuffling. In his book, "The New Apocrypha",