Play with these unique cards or add them to your collection!

One deck of Hungarian playing cards comprises 32 picture cards showing characters from the William Tell legend, and the aces depicting seasons of the year. A similar design is used in neighboring countries, but in Hungary they are known as Magyar Kártya (Hungarian Cards). The suits are hearts (Piros), bells (Tök), acorns (Makk) and leaves (Zöld), and the cards in each suit are ace (Ász), king (Király), over (Felsö), under (Alsó), 10, 9, 8 and 7.

Note on William Tell cards:

The characters depicted on the kings, overs and unders are from the 15th century legend of Wilhelm Tell, who is supposed to have led the Swiss resistance against Austrian domination. According to the legend, he was compelled to shoot an arrow through an apple placed on his son's head. Specifically, the characters are from the play about Wilhelm Tell written by Friedrich Schiller in 1804.

The playing-cards with these characters became popular around the time of the revolutions of 1848, probably because of the parallels with the uprisings against the Habsburg empire. The cards are used mainly in Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania, but are unknown in Switzerland, even though the characters on them are Swiss.

If you want to know how to play games with these cards, ask me to send you the address of a web site, where you can find the description of several interesting games that you can play with the Hungarian playing cards.