Harapan Magic Playing Cards
Marking System Tutorial
Thank you so much for purchasing and supporting my first (and hopefully not my last) logo deck, the Harapan Magic Playing Cards. Hidden within its elegant but striking back design is a devious marking system that allows you to secretly know the identity of the card without looking at its face!
The Harapan Magic Playing Cards back design has markings on all four corners, as shown circled in red. This means that no matter how the cards are oriented, and no matter whether you are spreading the cards as a right or left handed person, you will be able to read the markings.
Now, let’s zoom in to take a closer look at how the markings work.
The markings are actually all contained within two rectangles! The top rectangle (in red) marks the value, while the bottom rectangle (in yellow) marks the suit.
Note: Either corner will have the same information. If you’re spreading the cards from left to right as a right hander, you’ll be reading the markings at the top left corner of the deck. If you’re a left hander, you’ll be spreading from right to left, and hence you’ll be reading the markings at the top right corner of the deck.
Each corner of these rectangles will represent either a number (as shown in red) or a suit (as shown in yellow). Using the markings in the top left corner as an example, notice the pattern: the red numbers are in descending order 8-4-2-1 starting from the leftmost corner and circling around the top rectangle anti-clockwise. Similarly, for the bottom rectangle, the suit order is the popular CHaSeD system (Clubs, Hearts, Spades, Diamonds), starting from the leftmost corner and circling around the bottom rectangle anti-clockwise, just as before.
Note that for the markings in the top right corner, the numbers / suits are in the same order, starting from the rightmost corner this time and circling anti-clockwise around their respective rectangles.
Now if you were to pick up a card from the Harapan Magic deck, you will notice that those rectangles in the corner will have some sharp corners, and as well as some round corners. That pattern of sharp and round corners is the secret code to tell you what the card is.
The key thing to remember is to watch out for the SHARP corners - round corners are not counted, so ignore them. Let’s use examples to illustrate what I mean.
Take a look at this card, for example. You’ll notice that there is a sharp corner in the “1” corner of the top rectangle (indicated by the red arrow), and a sharp corner in the “C” corner of the bottom rectangle (indicated by the yellow arrow). The “1” means the card is an Ace (value of 1) and the “C” means it is a Club. Hence, this is the Ace of Clubs.
Here’s another example. This time, there are two sharp corners in the top rectangle, at the “4” and 2” positions (indicated by the red arrows). This means you have to add up 4 and 2 to get a total of 6. The sharp corner in the “H” corner of the bottom rectangle indicates Hearts, so this card must therefore be the Six of Hearts.
Now, some cards will have three sharp corners in the top rectangle. But don’t fret - simply add the numbers up! In this case, we have the sharp corners in the “4”, “2” and “1” positions (indicated by the red arrows), giving a total of 7. The bottom rectangle has a sharp corner in the “S” corner, indicating Spades. Hence, Seven of Spades!
Finally, some cards will add up to numbers greater than 10. They represent court cards - Jacks are 11, Queens are 12, and Kings are 13. In this example, the “8”, “4” and “1” corners are sharp in the top rectangle, which add up to 13, indicating a King. The bottom rectangle indicates Diamonds - so, King of Diamonds!