These types of cards are the oldest types of cards I’ve encountered. They originated in China and are still used in games today. The original formation included usually, three or four suits of cards that corresponded in name with types of money of that time. Each suit had nine cards labeled numerically 1-9.
The decks usually included cards of the following types:
- Cash- These were a suit type usually illustrated with some kind of disc shape to represent a coin.
- Strings- These were another suit type usually illustrated with a symbol to represent coins strung together by strings.
- Myriads- These suited cards usually just had their numerical value printed on them because they represented the tens of thousands range.
- Higher Denominations- Any higher suited cards were typically called tens of myriads and represented values of 100,000 to 900,000.
- Unsuited cards- These decks usually held a few unsuited cards though their use varied.