playing cards bicycle playing cards are a popular brand of standard playing cards . since 1885 the bicycle brand has been manufactured by the united states printing company which in 1894 became the united states playing card company uspcc of cincinnati . bicycle is a trademark of that company . they are popular with magicians gamblers and other card enthusiasts . in addition to many card games bicycle playing cards are commonly used in stage magic and flourishes . bicycle playing cards are comparable to uspcc s other brands like tally ho or bee playing cards which are commonly used in casinos worldwide though different card stock is used to produce them . contents 1 design 2 significance in american wars 3 references 4 external links design edit bicycle is a standard 52 card deck of red and black colored cards . also known as the french deck each card may have one of the four suits spades clubs diamonds and hearts . the numbers on the cards range from 2 to 10 then proceed onward to jack then queen king and ace . the ace has also been known to be the first card in a typical deck . the bicycle trademark is usually printed on the ace of spades . the deck comes with the hand ranks of poker an information card and two jokers . bicycle playing cards are sold in a variety of designs . there are a series of vintage backs bridge pinochle pastel color cards which are colors light blue lime green and pink and lo vision cards that are designed for the visually impaired . these lo vision cards contain large numbers on the face in a light blue color . other types of cards with varying backs and colors are produced for magic . significance in american wars edit during world war ii cards were produced that when submerged in water could be peeled apart and both halves had a map on the inside . when all the cards were put together it made a large map . these were supplied to pows so if they escaped they would have a map . one deck is located in the international spy museum in washington dc and there may be one other in a private collection . modern reproductions have been sold in limited editions . 1 the company provided crates of ace of spades cards for u.s. soldiers in the vietnam war . it was erroneously believed that the viet cong believed the ace of spades to be a symbol of death and would flee at the sight of the card . in actuality the ace initially meant nothing to the viet cong however it may have achieved some psychological impact through its use in propaganda and as a death card being placed upon dead bodies . the belief that the enemy was afraid of the cards improved the u.s. soldiers morale . the origin of the cards is attributed to a letter written by a lt. charles w. brown in early 1966 to allison f. stanley the president of the united states playing card company . brown had read remarks from congressman craig hosmer of california that the viet cong held superstitions of bad luck with pictures of women and the ace of spades . the bicycle ace of spaces featured an image of the goddess of liberty combined with the spade . upon conferring with other lieutenants brown asked for 1000 aces for his company to use as calling cards for his company to leave for the enemy to see . stanley was sympathetic to the soldiers and pulled cards from the production line to send free of charge . the story was reported by several news outlets including the stars and stripes where the myth was distributed throughout the military and more units requested cards . the symbol was eventually included in official psychological warfare operations and thousands of special all aces decks were donated by the card company to soldiers that purposely scattered them throughout the jungle and villages during raids . similar cards were produced during the gulf war in 1991 immediately prior to the invasion of iraq by us forces . due to the short duration of the conflict these cards never saw battle . 2 references edit a map inside the cards . bicyclecards.com . archived from the original on 2014 08 02 . retrieved 2014 10 31 . herbert a. friedman . the death card . psywarrior.com . archived from the original on 2014 07 15 . retrieved 2014 10 31 . external links edit wikimedia commons has media related to bicycle brand playing cards . official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title bicycle playing cards & oldid 741145625 categories american brandsproducts introduced in 1885hidden categories commons category with local link same as on wikidata navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version in other projects wikimedia commons languages e tinaespa olfran aisitalianonederlands polski edit links this page was last modified on 25 september 2016 at 17 56 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view