Why is the Ace of Spades the prettiest card in the deck?

[beekeeper]

just that, anyone know?

[Pov]

It's frequently decorated differently than all other cards in the deck. It's the highest ranked card of the highest suit. Not that suit matters in poker, but that's why it gets the special decoration on many decks.

[Ralle]

As I understand it, the special design on the ace of spades is not related to the fact that spades is usually considered to be the highest suit.

Instead it goes back to the old days, when they indicated that taxes had been paid on the deck by stamping the card on top. That top card happened to be the ace of spades.

[playersare]

this doesn't directly answer your question, but the history of the United States Playing Card Company (makers of "Bee" and "Bicycle" decks) has some insight:
http://www.usplayingcardco.com/history.html

also there are some collectors enthisiasts clubs online which might have more info for you, as well as some coffee table-type books published on the subject of antique card designs. do a google search and see what comes up.

[AKQJ10]

I suspect you're both right -- it was the card used for taxation purposes because it was an ace, although I'm not sure when the suit ranks developed. Also, the spade in the Anglo-French deck derived from the sword (spada or espada, although I don't know any Italian so the first one may be way wrong) in the Italo-Spanish deck. So perhaps the sword was easier to decorate than the literal club, coin (/images/graemlins/diamond.gif), or cup (/images/graemlins/heart.gif).

Come to think of it, I've seen Spanish decks with the ace of coins bearing the name of the producer, so maybe my conjecture about the sword/A /images/graemlins/spade.gif is all wrong.

[beekeeper]

Thanks, your responses were more interesting than I expected. I did find a couple of interesting links:

http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/playing-cards/tmfaq/tmfaq.html

http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/playing-cards/ace-of-spades.html