Spanish-suited playing cards or Spanish-suited cards have four suits, and a deck is usually made up of 40 or 48 cards (or even 50 by including two jokers). It is categorized as a Latin-suited deck and has strong similarities with the Italian-suited deck and some to the French deck. Spanish-suited cards are used in Spain, southern Italy, parts of France, Hispanic America, North Africa, and the Philippines. Description Playing cards, originally of Chinese origin, were adopted Mamluk Egypt by the 14th century if not earlier, and from there spread to the Iberian peninsula. The Spanish word naipes is loaned from nā'ib, ranks of face cards found in the Mamluk deck. The earliest record of naip comes from a Valencian rhyming dictionary by Jaume March II in 1371, but without any context or definition. By 1380, naipero (card-maker) was a recognized profession. Valencia's town council issued a blanket ban on un novell joch apellat dels naips (a new game called cards) in 1384. "Moorish-styled" cards were produced in Valencia during the late 14th or early 15th century. Unlike modern Spanish decks, there was a rank consisting of 10 pips suggesting that the earliest Spanish packs consisted of 52 cards. The removal of one rank shortened the deck to 48 which made card production simpler: a whole deck could be made with just two uncut sheets. 48-card decks have nine ranks of pip cards (1-9) and three ranks of face cards (10-12). Since the mid-20th century, they have usually been sold with two jokers, for a total of 50 cards. Stripped decks have 40 cards, lacking ranks 8 and 9 and jokers. The popularity of the stripped deck is due to game of Ombre, which became a craze throughout Europe during the 17th century. The Spanish suits closely resemble Italian-suited cards as both were derived from the "Moorish-styled" cards. The four suits are bastos (clubs), oros (literally "golds", that is, golden coins), copas (cups) and espadas (swords). Unlike the suits found in northern Italy, Spanish swords are straight and the clubs resemble knobbly cudgels instead of ceremonial batons. Swords and clubs also do not intersect (except in the 3 of clubs card). Two surviving early decks did have intersecting clubs and swords as in Italian or Mamluk cards. The Spanish may have separated the pips in the 15th century to make them more easily distinguishable (some export cards kept the intersecting pips,