That's the Jester's bauble or marotte, it's a sort of equivalent to a Monarch's sceptre and is a 'fool' or jester's staff of office. The old Alf Cooke 'New Bond' cards sold by Woolworths featured this type of Joker. I loved them, they handled so well and were very cheap.

Ah, that makes so much sense, Topper2! I hadn't thought of it that way. With his mace, the jester is making fun of the King. Just as he is, now I think about it, in the modern Bicycle cards in which the joker is dressed up as the King riding a bike -- something no dignified monarch would do, at least not in our imaginary conception of royalty.

For me when I was younger cards was always associated with magic in some shape or form, due to how easy they are to get and cost effective this is where I started, however this opened my eyes to magic and led me to discover others areas of interest such as coin magic