Kaartspel bestaande uit 63 stuks dik papieren kaarten: 6 sets van 9 numerieke kaarten (1-9), 6 'generaalskaarten', 1 numerieke kaart 9, 2 blanco kaarten.<BR> Voordat het Japanse kaartspel hanafuda in Korea populair werd tijdens de koloniale periode, was t'ujŏn ('vechtkaarten') het meest gespeelde kaartspel. Er zijn verschillende variaties in het aantal kaarten per spel; het aantal sets bestaande uit een 'generaalskaart' en numerieke kaarten kan variëren van 6 tot 8 per kaartspel. De mogelijkheid bestaat dat dit spel niet compleet is. Er is een nummer 9 over en er zijn twee blanco kaarten die bedoeld waren om verloren gegane kaarten te vervangen. Een uitgebreide uitleg van dit spel staat in het werk van Stewart Culin (1895), Korean Games.<BR> <BR> Before the arrival of hwat'u (the Korean version of Japanese hanafuda introduced during the colonial period, also known as kodori, or ‘go-stop’), the most popular card game in Chosŏn Korea was t'ujŏn (fighting cards). As can be seen in the figure, the cards are long and narrow, measuring 18 cm by 2 cm.<BR> The precise origins of t’ujŏn in Korea are not clear, but it is suggested that the game came to Korea around the end of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century. Historical records suggest that t’ujŏn may have been inspired by the introduction of Ming China mǎ diào into Korea following the Japanese invasions of the late seventeenth century. These Chinese card games where then transformed into the form seen here. The game became a favorite pastime in Chosŏn-era Korea and came to be played as a form of gambling, causing a troublesome increase in gambling during the second half of the eighteenth century. Eventually t’ujŏn yielded to hwat’u, which is derived from the Japanese hanafuda (flower card) game imported into Korea during the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. Currently, t’ujŏn is generally not encountered outside the context of museum displays.<BR> A deck consists of a varying number of cards, ranging from as many as 80 to as few as 25. Most commonly, a deck of 80 or 60 cards will be arranged into suits of ten cards, each consisting of nine numeral cards and one 'general.' The front side of the card shows a numeral sign or a stylized Chinese character resembling the animal of that suit (see below). The back side has a leaf-shaped figure that is identical on all cards.<BR> There are multiple variations as to the number of cards and the playing rules. Depending on the number of players, part or all of the deck was used. The Kyŏngdo chapji, a treatise on customs of the capital dating from the eighteenth century, mentions nine suits of nine cards, while Culin (1895) speaks of decks of six and eight suits of ten cards, as appears to have been more common during the nineteenth century.<BR> If we compare this to the deck of cards in the Leiden collection, it appears that the deck may not be complete. Consisting of 63 cards, there is a number nine card left over, as well as two blank cards. Culin attributes the presence of blank cards to the inclusion of spare cards in case one gets lost or shreds. The 'general' cards in this deck are man, fish, crow, antelope, rabbit and horse. In addition to these, the pheasant and star suits are mentioned in Culin's work, but there is no telling whether the set in the Leiden collection was originally an 80-card deck that included these two suits.<BR>