Unter (playing card)

The Unter, also called the Wenzel or Wenz, and (in Swiss) also the Under, is a court card in the German and Swiss-suited playing cards, which corresponds to the Jack in French decks. The name Unter (lit.: "under") comes from the fact that the suit sign is located in the lower part of the card as opposed to the higher ranking Ober (lit. "over") whose suit sign is located on the top of the card. Unters were described soon after the introduction of playing cards in Europe. In 1377, Johannes of Rheinfelden wrote that the lowest court card was a marshal (cavalry commander) who held his suit sign hanging down. It is likely that the horses were dropped to simplify production in the late 14th or early 15th centuries. In the Spanish deck, jacks are known as sota which also means "under", a vestigial remnant of their common origin.^[1] The most common motifs used to depict the Unter are simple knights or even farmers. Decks of four Unters are used in card games such as Skat, Mau Mau, Bavarian Tarock and Schafkopf, while decks used in games such as Gaigel and Doppelkopf use eight Unters. In Skat games using the German style cards, and in German Schafkopf the Unters are the highest trump cards.

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  Early example: Unter with flower design, mid-15th century
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  Frühe Darstellung: Unter with bird design, mid-15th century
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  An Unter of acorns in a Swiss German deck, c. 1850
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  An Unter of acorns in a Saxon deck. Unlike Obers the acorns are in the middle.

References

External links

Look up Unter in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.