The Joker Card is a Modern New World Invention!
Note: This was a very ambitious article (too ambitious?) for a collector like me. But, I'm publishing it now so that the real historians can read it and we can discuss it Oct 2-6th in Niagara Falls at the Annual 52 Plus Joker conference. It's not too late to sign up.
It seems natural today that the royal cards in a deck of cards - the king, queen, and jack - are accompanied by a court jester. But, while the general format of decks of cards goes back many hundreds of years (maybe a millennium), the invention and the addition of the joker is a relatively recent addition, dating from the second half of the 1800s. For me, the invention of the joker is one of the great American inventions of the 1800s.
I have been curious and tried to pinpoint the process of creating the first joker. It's been a bumpy road for me. My original article from Nov 2023 relied 100% on information from The Hochman Encyclopedia of American Playing Cards. I organized the first dozen jokers listed in Hochman by publisher and graphical theme. Unfortunately, I learned shortly after publishing that the Heathen Chinese joker (NY16) which appeared to be the first joker with an 1860 date in Hochman, was actually published in 1871. I updated the article with the news of the error and let it sit for awhile.
I recently made another run at the topic this time focusing on what would define a card as being the first joker. My point of departure was that while the Best Bower cards added to decks in the late 1860s were a step towards having jokers, they were not, IMHO, jokers. For me, there are three requirements to count as the first modern joker:
1. Jokers are multipurpose cards for use in any game. The best bower cards don't count since they are designed for use only in the game of euchre.
2. Jokers are called Joker. There were blank cards, trademark cards, and best bower cards before we had jokers but again IMHO, if it's not called a joker, it is not yet a joker.
3. Jokers are jesters, part of the royal court. A hallmark of the modern concept of the joker is that the court jester is a person who belongs at court along with the kings, queens, and jacks.
Based on all of this, I focused on a card that Hochman listed as published in 1867, the L5 by Eagle Card Company. I was thrilled. Here was - I thought - a clean winner of what was the first joker based on my three criteria.
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| L5 The Joker "1867" per Hochman |
But writing and historical research is for me - as I mentioned - a bumpy ride. Rather than hit publish, I sent my article out to a few experts for review. They pointed out that Hochman and I were wrong! Again! This L5 was not published in 1867 as listed by Hochman, it was most likely published in 1877 based on their historical knowledge and observations such as the finish, the rounded corners, and timeline about the publisher.
So which deck first shipped with a card actually marked joker? Oddly, I seem to have gone full circle and am back to pointing at the Heathen Chinese as the first one to use the term joker.
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| NY16 'The Joker' 1871 (not 1860) |
The Imperial or Best Bowers for Euchre
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| Imperial Best Bower Cards |
- A hallmark of the modern joker is that it is a spare multipurpose card whereas the Imperial and Best Bower cards were intended for a specific purpose in a specific game.
- I think a historical breakthrough in defining the joker was envisaging it as the court jester, a member of the royal court of face cards. For me, the joker is largely defined as being a court jester. In this, it has circled back to mirroring the Fool card from tarot decks. Of course, I'm not against and I don't rule out as jokers all the creative and whimsical variations of art on joker cards: I just think that the first one to be a full joker should have introduced this royal element.
So I think the Best Bower cards were precursors to a joker: one step closer but not yet there since they were for a specific purpose. (Arguably, it was a step backwards since it replaced the multipurpose blank card with a single purpose card).
- AD7 with 'The Little Joker'. 1872.
- NY16 with 'The Joker' written beneath the card game. 1871 (not 1860).
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| L5 'The Joker' 1877 (not 1867) |
U19c Columbias with Joker in the center of the card. 1872. "Victor E. Mauger ordered customized cards from Goodall for the US market starting as early as 1867" (Hochman). The earliest joker shown is U19c Columbias. It is a very early card with the word joker: It has a geometric design rather than a person. It's wild that this early joker appears to be manufactured in London by Goodall. I wonder when the first joker was published in London and whether it was by Goodall who learned about it when manufacturing for Mauger. The date is 1872.
The card is labelled The Little Joker and the girl in the box is holding the king, so there's a connection to the court. It's not strictly a royal jester but still, I'd personally like it to be considered enough of a court reference so that it is considered the first joker ever. Why would I like this one to count? For the simple selfish reason that I have it in my collection. And I like it. (Specifically, I like it better than Heathen Chinese joker which predates so I can see why others might not be convinced)
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| Note the 1872 date in Microprint |
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| The Little Joker. AD7. 1872 |
The Heathen Chinese Card. NY16 1871. It appears that the NY16 deck could be the first time a card was labelled The Joker. The card featured an illustration of a card game amongst a number of cheats, one of whom was Chinese. It was story told in a poem published in 1870 by Bret Harte. There's more background about this poem and image below. While Hochman says the card is copyright 1860 by the New York Consolidated Card Company (NY16 JNO J Levy), everyone now seems to agree that this date is wrong and the most likely date for this card is 1871, the year after the poem was published. This later date still leaves this card as the first one to use the word joker. So if we don't insist on there being a court connection, this would be the first joker!
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| NY16 'The Joker' 1871 (not 1860) |
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| Candidates for the Earliest Joker by Theme |
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| Candidates for the Earliest Joker with Hochman References |
Background on The Heathen Chinese Images
In 1870, Bret Harte published a poem originally called "Plain Language from Truthful James " about a card game between a few cheats primarily a Chinese man named "Ah Sin". It was sensationally popular and was reprinted and republished across the country. It made Bret Harte one of the more celebrated literary man in America. The poem, while not intended by the author this way (per his writings), rode the wave of the rampant prejudice against Chinese immigrants at that time.
In 1871, the poem was reprinted and retitled by a Boston newspaper as "The Heathen Chinee" (sic) which is how it became commonly known. The story was also expanded into a Broadway Play written collaboratively by Mark Twain and Bret Harte.
For more information:
https://twain.lib.virginia.edu/roughingit/map/chiharte.html https://www.telelib.com/authors/H/HarteBret/verse/misc/plainlanguage.html -the poem
What does this have to do with jokers? Well, three of the very earliest jokers featured this character - Ah Sin - playing cards with some aces in his sleeve. L4, NY16, and L7. The Chinese theme continued with the L16 deck. It was a dragon Best Bower joker (I'm assuming that the dragon at that time was a Chinese reference). It's striking how many of the early jokers were Chinese themed, there was not a similar focus with Chinese themes at that time with the card backs. It's strange to think that the Heathen Chinese theme shown on jokers predates the court jester theme.
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| Early Chinese Themed Jokers |
Tarot Fool and the Joker. Many people have suggested the joker is directly derived from the Fool card in the tarot deck. Both are unique extra cards in their deck and thematically, the court jester and the fool are closely related. The tarot deck with the fool has been around much longer than the joker, they seem to date back to Italy in the 1500s. But, many point out that the tarot deck was not popular in the US until after 1900 by which time the joker had been around in American decks for 40 years concluding that it's unlikely that the tarot fool jumped to American decks as the joker. There are others who say the Tarot deck was actually well known by the card design and manufacturing community in the US although not the general public and they conclude that there is some probability that the tarot fool influenced the format of the extra cards in American decks.
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| Early Animal Jokers |
Sources
This article (and most of the imagery) is based largely on information from The Hochman Encyclopedia of American Playing Cards by Tom and Judy Dawson supplemented by some other sources. It is meant to start a discussion and I'm expecting that people with more detailed research will help move our understanding forward. I'm particularly looking forward to Dave Seaney's research in this area.
Dave Seaney: Several websites such as https://longleybrothers.weebly.com/paper-fabrique-cards---cincinnati.html and an unpublished article: "Just a Thought." This unpublished short article documents that the 1868 "American Hoyle or Gentleman's' Handbook of Games" used the word "joker" as an alternative term for the additional blank card used as imperial trump card. He also points to John J Levy's Joker illustrating the Ah Sin card game (much more on this later) as the first card to use the term joker.
Phil Neil's Article on HobbyLark has an amazingly-well researched article which I'll partially summarize below. But there is so much scholarship there that it is worth spending time on.
Wiki Article, a short article with some good info on different milestones in publishing jokers, including international info. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Joker_(playing_card)
A short article, just worth mentioning: https://www.mpl.us/blog/history-of-the-joker-card/
David Parlett, Encyclopedia Brittanica wrote an article which has interesting info: https://www.britannica.com/topic/euchre#ref891698
Simon Wintle on WOPC illuminates the joker going from the USA to England. An image borrowed from Simon's article is this piece of marketing by Goodall, the first I've seen that mentions jokers. It seems to say that the joker was created for the American Game of Euchre. https://www.wopc.co.uk/playing-cards/the-joker-card
Phil Neil's Article. (published Feb 2019, updated in 2022) Phil's article has a lot of fabulous info. He believes several trends interacted leading to the joker and that the most common story about the creation of the joker is wrong in some important ways. One starting point is the concept of a jack of clubs being used as a wild card. This happened first in a game called brag. In the late 1840s and early 50s, the blank card often provided with decks started being used as a wild card across three popular games of the era: brag, euchre, and poker.
Independently in 1852, Thomas Strong with his Yankee Nations magazine created a custom deck with five suits and ten face cards called jokers. The goal was to introduce games which were more wholesome than the dominant gambling games of the era. One Yankee Nations game introduced in 1856 was called Blake Joke. Quite popular at the time, the games faded away after a few decades. But this effort led to widespread use of the word joker for card games. A third trend was the concept of the Fool card as a wild trump card in the tarot decks and games. This was when tarot was known as a game and a deck with 54 cards, not as a fortune telling deck with 78 cards.
From this, Phil emphasizes that there is no evidence supporting the concept of the joker having an intermediate period Best Bower phase when it was known as the juker card. He insists that it became obvious that the blank card being used as a wild card or best bower could be best integrated in the deck as a court member - the court jester or joker - who was an established figure in the courts with the kings, queens, and jacks. (NOTE: Does anyone know how to reach Phil Neil?)
Some thoughts and areas for discussion and further study, Missing Historical Info.
One of the mysteries to me is why, given the the very competitive business landscape of the 1860s and 1870s, aren't there more Intellectual Property (patents, registered trademarks, or registered copyrights) filings related to these Best Bower and jokers cards? I have looked but found no patent, registered trademark, or registered copyright filings that relate to the evolution of the joker. David Seaney has researched and found info related to the NY36 and NY37 card copyright. He also found a copyright filing related to NY16. And while I have seen card advertisements from that era (actually from a little later) that talk about the cards' snappy designs, gold edges, smoothness, packaging, and use of indices, I have not seen many advertisements or sales materials that talk about the Best Bower cards or jokers.
I hear that decks had a blank and a trademark card for quite awhile. They are forerunners of the joker. It seems quite odd to me to ship an empty blank card and it seems natural to add some designs onto that blank card to at least explain that it can be used as a replacement or wild card. Before the "best bower" and joker concept, I wonder what else they put on the card. There was also another card which they used for trademark and branding information. I haven't found any copies of decks printed anywhere which show the actual extra card. I have none in my collection and am unfamiliar with those decks. I also have questions about how the printing technology and systems led to the common use of the joker.
A deck of cards is printed as a single sheet. The layout of the sheet in modern decks is 9 by 6. This means that there are 54 card spots available for each deck. I've wondered whether prior to having 54 cards in a deck, did they print sheets of cards with only 52 spots available, perhaps 13 by 4? Or was an entirely different approach to printing decks used? Does anyone who knows about the printing processes being used have any insight into how these sheets were laid out at that time by different publishers?
2. It's clear that once the concept of the joker was launched, it was massively accepted. The number of joker designs shown in Hochman between 1875 and 1890 is uncountable, I tried!
The joker: what an immediate massive hit that was eventually adopted worldwide!
While this article is already long and was finished weeks ago, I'm now (9/22/24) adding a postscript because I've been thinking a lot about it.
It's about the fact that the very first joker was most likely a mocking caricature of the Chinese in America. Clearly a racial slur. It has left me thinking about the different ways that playing cards portrayed minorities in the USA at the end of the 1800s.
Representation of Chinese. This article has listed three very early jokers which mockingly show hostility and disdain towards the Chinese.
.PNG)
But this attitude that shows up on the jokers is the opposite approach of the imagery that I see on the back of the playing cards. I think these back images of Chinese on the back of cards show a respect and interest that is 180 degrees different than the mockery of the "The Heathen Chinese" imagery. It's more consistent with the European and American fascination with China that showed up as Chinoiserie imagery in the 17th and 18th hundreds.
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| Cheefu 1906 Chink 1904 |
My examples are admittedly too few to generalize and the dates are a little different. Still, I don't know how to understand or explain it. Did times change? Were these just divergent mentalities one relating to China, the other to Chinese working in America?
The Representation of Blacks. Rory Renick has documented for us the different eras in representations of the African diaspora on American cards. He commented that while there were only a few black images on cards before the late 1800s, the end of Reconstruction, 1882 through 1935 unleashed a nostalgic longing to see black people in disparaging stereotypes often connected to watermelon and / or cotton.
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| Source: Rory Renick's Display |
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Postscript: A few thoughts on minority portrayal. While this article is already long and was finished weeks ago, I'm now (9/22/24) adding a postscript because I've been thinking a lot about it.
It's about the fact that the very first joker was most likely a mocking caricature of the Chinese in America. Clearly a racial slur. It has left me thinking about the different ways that playing cards portrayed minorities in the USA at the end of the 1800s.
Representation of Chinese. This article has listed three very early jokers which mockingly show hostility and disdain towards the Chinese.
But this attitude that shows up on the jokers is the opposite approach of the imagery that I see on the back of the playing cards. I think these back images of Chinese on the back of cards show a respect and interest that is 180 degrees different than the mockery of the "The Heathen Chinese" imagery. It's more consistent with the European and American fascination with China that showed up as Chinoiserie imagery in the 17th and 18th hundreds.
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| Cheefu 1906 Chink 1904 |
My examples are admittedly too few to generalize and the dates are a little different. Still, I don't know how to understand or explain it. Did times change? Were these just divergent mentalities one relating to China, the other to Chinese working in America?
The Representation of Blacks. Rory Renick has documented for us the different eras in representations of the African diaspora on American cards. He commented that while there were only a few black images on cards before the late 1800s, the end of Reconstruction, 1882 through 1935 unleashed a nostalgic longing to see black people in disparaging stereotypes often connected to watermelon and / or cotton.
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| Source: Rory Renick's Display |
My underlying question is what we can learn about American thinking and attitudes towards the "other" by the artwork on playing cards. Generally, I think we would benefit from a lot more research and thinking in this area. In addition to minorities, there was an enormous interest in mythology (think of Diana), British aristocratic culture (the Hunt), royalty, the exotic (Oasis), and Americana. I think of Americana as Spinning Wheel and Knuckles Down.
Trying to figure out why they picked the artwork that they did for the early decks: That is a question for another day.
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Want to see more? (The rest of my website is about the cards in MY collection). Take a look at:
The Matching Congress 606 Jokers, 1898-1904
Old Decks that I've bought
Displays of Old Decks
Americana Themed Jokers
American Folklore Mysteries from 1800s on Jokers
The Playing Card Museum Joker Poster - Can they all be found?
The 52 Plus Joker 2023 Conference
Meeting Joop, Fred, Jelle, and Ronald in 2023 and Dan in 2020
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Thanks for your input and for reading and thinking about jokers.