Sarah -- 

Wikipedia has a fairly extensive article with
references to a number of sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playing_cards

There is an International Playing Card Society; their 
web site is: http://i-p-c-s.org/  

You might get an authoritative answer by contacting
them directly.  IPC is still developing its own FAQ
so, until then, they are referring people with
questions to 
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~daf/i-p-c-s.org/faq/basics.php

I noticed the following bit of information quickly
scanning through the FAQ (what country or region is of
interest to you -- you don't say in your message): 
"In the 18th century the Germans took the practical
step of replacing the Italian suits by the French
suits of spades, clubs, hearts and diamonds, and
placing more prominent numerals (Arabic or Roman) on
the trumps for easy identification."   

Numerals were shown some playing cards prior to 1800,
and small numerals may have been used earlier than
1700.  At least one of the references to Chinese
playing cards indicated those cards were showing
ideograms for Chinese numerals in the 9th century.

Judy Turner
Whitefish Bay, WI

--- Sarah Hatcher <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Dear All,
> I am working on some information about the history
> of playing cards and am
> currently stumped. Does anyone know when playing
> cards began having numbers
> printed on them?  What was the original reason that
> they didn't have numbers?  
> I'm imagining it had something to do with literacy
> rates or the cost of
> printing, but would love to have concrete evidence.
> 
> Many thanks,
> Sarah


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