Banner (playing card)

The Banner is a playing card used in Swiss-suited cards. It is equivalent to a 10, being ranked between a 9 and an Unter.

For other uses, see Banner (disambiguation).
The Banner of Shields from an 1850 Swiss pack

Name

In German, Banner means “flag” or “banner” and is pronounced /ˈbanɐ/. It is grammatically neuter and its plural is the same: Banner.

Characteristics

In German-speaking Switzerland, to the east of the Brünig-Napf-Reuss line (the German-speaking part of Switzerland corresponding to the centre and east of the country), the most popular card deck is a pack of 36 cards with the Swiss suit symbols of Acorns, Bells, Roses and Shields and numbered as follows: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 or Banner, Unter, Ober, King and Deuce.

While the pip cards 6 to 9 display a number of suit symbols corresponding to the number of the card, the 10 follows a different scheme. It has only one example of the suit symbol, much larger than on the other cards, depicted on a banner floating in the wind[1][2][3], which gives the card its name. Like the court cards, the Banners are double-ended in modern packs, the image begin repeated symmetrically about a diagonal line through the card, represented by the flagpole. Older patterns are sometimes single-ended.

History

The Swiss Banner may be derived from old card games from the German-speaking regions of Europe which were based on a hunting theme, where cards worth ten points were also represented by a banner such as the Ambraser Hofjagdspiel and Stuttgarter Kartenspiel.[4]

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See also

References
  1. "History of Playing-Cards". International Playing-Card Society.
  2. "Swiss Jass". pagat.com.
  3. "Playing Cards from Switzerland". The World of Playing Cards. Archived from the original on 2013-01-14. Retrieved 2018-12-03.
  4. "Switzerland". Playing Cards.
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