Bicycle Playing Cards Bicycle Playing Cards Bicycle Playing Cards is a brand of playing cards. Since 1885, the Bicycle brand has been manufactured by the United States Printing Company, which, in 1894, became the United States Playing Card Company (USPCC) of Cincinnati. "Bicycle" is a trademark of that company. The name Bicycle was chosen to reflect . Bicycle is a standard 52-card deck of red and black colored cards. Also known as the French deck, each card may have one of the four suits: spades, clubs, diamonds, and hearts. The numbers on the cards range from 2 to 10, then proceed onward to
King (playing card) In the Ace-Ten family of games such as pinochle and schnapsen, both the ace and the 10 rank higher than the king. The king card is the oldest and most universal court card. It most likely originated in Persian Ganjifeh where kings are depicted as seated on thrones and outranking the viceroy cards which are mounted on horses. Playing cards were transmitted to Italy and Spain via the Mamluks and Moors. The best preserved and most complete deck of Mamluk cards, the Topkapı pack, did not display human figures but just listed their rank most likely due to religious prohibition.