Playing Card Deck

One of two sets of playing cards, used to play Luk Fu 六虎 ( Six Tigers). Called lat chi/ lut chi (甩紙) or lieh ch'ih (廢紙) by Stewart Culin and W.H. Wilkinson who collected them. There are 40 different cards. All the cards are inscribed with their value in large stylized characters at the top. Of these there are 35 cards in four suits: 2 to 9 of shi 拾 (tens [of strings of 1000 cash]), 1-9 of guan 貫 (strings of 1000 cash), 1-9 of suo 索 (strings of 100 cash), and 1-9 of qian 錢 (cash). The 1 of cash has the name yun qian 雲綫 (cloud money or Yunnan coin). In addition there are five extra cards with the names lu hua 鹿花, bai zi 百子 (hundred sons), mao gong 毛公 (prince of Mao), qian zi 千子(thousand sons) and wan zi 萬子 (ten thousand sons). Red underprints are on 8 of shi, 9's of shi, guan and suo, and on Mao gong, bai zi, qian zi, and wan zi. These read: 謝家英豐齋, 仁記錢貫索. The backs are black.

From Culin publication: "No. 23. - Canton. Similar to No. 22, but having in addition Ts'in Tsz' and Man Tsz', "Thousand Sons" and "Myriad Sons." The red impress reads, Tse ka Wing Fung chai, Yan ki ts'in kun sok. "Tse family, Wing Fung ('brilliant abundance') studio. Sign of Yan ('benevolence'). Cash, rouleaux, and strings." It is impressed on 9 of "strings," the 8, 9 of lakhs, 9 of rouleaux, Prince of Mo, Hundred Sons, Thousand Sons, Myriad Sons. Total, 40."