Hearts, bells, leaves and acorns (German suits)
The four suits of German packs: hearts, bells, leaves and acorns. In German they are Herz or Rot (red), Schellen (bells), Grün or Laub (green, leaf) and Eichel (acorn). Swiss packs have shields, roses, acorns and bells.
How to read it
A German-suited pack has 32 or 36 cards. Its court cards are a king and two men, the Ober and the Unter, and its top card is the Daus, also called the As, the International Playing-Card Society’s table shows. The bell is a hawk bell. Swiss packs share the acorn and the bell and have shields (Schilten) and roses (Rosen) in place of leaves and hearts.
Also searched as: acorns bells leaves hearts, german card suits, german deck suits, german playing cards, schellen eichel, swiss card suits.
Which suits came first
Britannica (1911) says hearts, bells, leaves and acorns are the marks on the earliest cards, which are German. Willshire’s 1876 catalogue of the British Museum’s cards puts the Italian cups, money, clubs and swords first, and says the Germans used their own marks early, as some of the oldest surviving cards show.
German and French suits
Britannica (1911) thought the French copied two of their signs from these: the club from the acorn and the spade from the leaf. Germany came to accept the French suits as well, Willshire notes, and German packs with French suits call them Kreuz, Pik, Herz and Karo.
Read next
- Next in Playing card suitsAce of spadesIn English and American packs the ace of spades is the one ace with a large, decorated design. It began as a tax stamp: from 1765 the British tax office printed the ace of spades to show that duty on the pack had been paid.
- The same shape in Accessibility symbolsAccessible Icon (dynamic wheelchair symbol)A wheelchair symbol with the figure leaning forward and an arm swept back on the wheel, from the Accessible Icon Project. It marks the same accessible places as the International Symbol of Access; the project put it in the public domain.
More playing card suits
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with circles or curves and waves.
Sources
- Cards, Playing, Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition (1911), vol. 5, pp. 324–326 (Wikisource transcription), Encyclopædia Britannica (Wikisource), p. 325, marks of the suits
- A Descriptive Catalogue of Playing and Other Cards in the British Museum, by W. H. Willshire, Trustees of the British Museum, London, 1876 (scan on the Internet Archive), General history: marks, designs, etc., pp. 30–34
- An introduction (playing-card FAQ), formerly at cs.man.ac.uk/playing-cards, now hosted by the IPCS, International Playing-Card Society, National suit systems: Swiss and German-suited cards
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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