Question

The suits in a standard deck of cards weren’t always, diamonds, hearts, spades, and clubs, what were they originally?

Answer 1

The four card suits that we are familiar with, hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades, were created by the French. The original concept of suits came from the Italo-Spansish deck, which contained cups, coins, clubs and swords. ... Only the court cards in the French deck required woodcut illustrations.

Answer 2

One early deck had five suits, the Latin ones with an extra suit of shields. ... The French derived their suits of trèfles (clovers or clubs ♣), carreaux (tiles or diamonds. ♦ ), cœurs (hearts♥), and piques (pikes or spades ♠) from the German suits around 1480.

Cards have been used for gambling, divination, and even commerce.