Three decks, one Slovenia

The Premium deck was painted especially for Tarok 124: thirty-eight images bound into one world. Every card sits in the same gilded frame: baroque scrollwork, bee skeps in the medallions and red carnations in the corners, all on warm parchment. The trumps carry scenes of Slovenia, the court cards the rulers of their suits, and the Roman numerals are drawn sharp and legible, after the old Viennese cards but without their grey patina.

Twenty-two trumps are twenty-two postcards: take a walk from the juggler to Bled.

The court cards (kings, queens, cavaliers and jacks) each rule their own suit in its colours; the king of hearts sits by candlelight, the king of spades on a throne of steel. The back carries the deck's emblem: a bee on a linden leaf wreathed in carnations. The pip cards are deliberately calm and sharp: in a fast game, legibility wins.

Some tables forgive no novelties. For them there are the classic cards: the Industrie und Glück pattern, at home on Slovenian tables for a good hundred years: double images, Roman numerals, genre scenes and a back with a fine acorn pattern. These are the cards our grandfathers remember, a feel every tavern knows.

Where the pattern comes from and how it reached us: read the history of tarok.

The Folk deck honours the painters who once decorated beehives: red-and-green frames on old wood, carnations and daisies along the edges, the stroke of a folk hand in every image. On trump XXI stands Zlatorog, the white chamois with golden horns from the Triglav legend; the back carries a bee skep wreathed in flowers.

Why beehive panels are a world curiosity and where to see them in person: read Beehive panels: the gallery that buzzed.