Ace of spades

How to read it

Aces in standard European packs are usually the same size in every suit, the International Playing-Card Society notes; the big spade belongs to the Anglo-American pack. Playing cards in England were taxed from 1711 until 1960. At first a hand stamp went on any one card; from about 1718 it went on the ace of spades, probably because that was the card on top. From 1765 the tax office printed the aces from engraved metal plates, with a more elaborate design to make them harder to forge, and makers bought them, paying the tax that way, Paul Bostock writes for the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards. From 1862 makers were free to design their own, and they kept the ornate ace with their name on it. Unicode encodes the card as U+1F0A1 PLAYING CARD ACE OF SPADES, 🂡.

Also searched as: 🂡, ace of spades design, ace of spades meaning, duty ace, old frizzle, why is the ace of spades fancy.

The duty aces

The printed ace changed with the rate of tax. The 1828 ace, for a duty of one shilling, was known as ‘Old Frizzle’ and looked like something taken from a banknote, the IPCS says. A pack made by Bancks Brothers between 1830 and 1837, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, has its ace lettered “Duty One Shilling Bancks Brothers Successors To Hunt & Sons.” Cards for export carried no tax, and their ace of spades had only the word Exportation, The World of Playing Cards notes. Forging an ace was a capital offence: the card maker Richard Harding printed his own, was found guilty at the Old Bailey and was hanged in 1805.

When the tax ended

From 1 September 1862 the duty, cut to threepence a pack, was charged on the wrapper, and the ace was no longer a tax stamp. The sources differ on the date the duty ended: The World of Playing Cards gives 4 August 1960, Bostock gives July 1960, and the IPCS gives 1960, when the tax had become more trouble to collect than it was worth.

The Company’s aces

The Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards, founded by royal charter in 1628, enters each year’s design for the ace of spades in a leather-bound book kept at the Guildhall.