Curse of Scotland Gurney Benham's book about playing cards, in describing the game of Pope Joan he gives his own explanation for why this card is known as the Curse of Scotland: "The crown of Scotland contained only nine stones, as they never could afford a tenth". Eric Partridge's "Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang" considers: “the various theories are as interesting as they are unconvincing”. "Collins Encyclopedia of Scotland" says for "Curse of Scotland" "This is usually taken to be the nine of diamonds playing card, though explanations differ". The 19th century Tarot of Marseilles is one of the standard designs for tarot
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,