[AaronBrown]

I wouldn't call myself a card historian, but I've been interested in this stuff for a while.

The current 52-card deck we use is based on a French deck, that was adapted by England. 150 years ago, you would still find plenty of games played with special decks with all sorts of different numbers of cards and suits. We have that today, except the special decks are generally marketed as specific games like Crazy 8's, Uno, Authors and so forth.

Starting around 1900, there were a lot of efforts to rationalize play, it was part of a scientific movement to throw out superstition and tradition. The 60-card deck was part of it, because 60 is divisible by 2, 3 and 5; with an extra 2. You can divide the cards evenly for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15 and 30 players. A 52 card deck works only for 2, 4 and 13. There was also a 78-card deck (six suits, keeping the relatively large prime factor but giving more small ones to work with) and 84 cards (2, 3 and 7 instead of 2, 3 and 5).

In addition to the unusual numbers of cards, the makers used modern suits and personages, who remembers what a "jack" really is, and what is that weird thing he's holding?

I consider this part of the Poker tradition, in the sense that Poker insisted early that the hand rankings be based on simple mathematical principles, rather than the arbitrary and complex rankings of most traditional games.

Removing cards from a deck to change the game is an old habit applied to almost every game. I consider it an English practice. Of course it has the exact opposite effect as intended, experts can rapidly adjust to the change, other players cannot.