cardomancy

Before going on my walk today while crossing the threshold of the front door to my enclosed porch I suddenly thought, "I'm going to find a playing card today." Something which I hadn't done since last year when I found a slew of them which led to my interest in cartomancy and eventually the amassing of dozens of decks. Anyway, I found it interesting.  As far as symbolism and cartomancy go: "The Four of Clubs is called by sailors the Devil's Bedposts."  "...in the old game of Gleek all the fours were named Tiddy."  'The Four of Clubs is a card of strengthening friendships and increased social capacities. It suggests that the Querent is held in warm affection and high regard by those about him but that he is not fully aware of this cherishing. The intimation is that, in case of need, he may find assistance from unexpected sources.  "This card represents gradual growth, a day by day tightening of bonds of affection which may escape the Qu

I'm having some difficulty dating this Joker even though the back of the Fleur-de-lis card seems to be linked to a classic AGMULLER deck. However, every pack that I have seen has the classic look Joker and nothing close to resembling this almost stained-glass Jester look. It would stand to reason that those 1950s decks are later iterations of this card which could be a throwback look itself, though I'm not sure how long back Jokers go in Switzerland seeing as they only date back to the Civil War era here in America.  

Tending my fruit, tending my fruit  Ah you've got to have a hobby  A man must have a shed to keep him sane Thus begins a song by XTC that is applicable here. Seeing as I have turned out to be a one dwarf pumpkin farmer and I'm too off-put by people to keep up the cartomancy charade I've turned to the cards themselves. Writing and explicating upon them. I'd much prefer hanging out with my 15-year-old or the woman I love but the former would rather not and the latter would but... thus are the foibles of man.  So here am I ruminating on playing cards.  Some people say  That I am out of my tree  Or just a strawberry fool  Someday they'll see  'Til then I'll blow you a raspberry  'Cause apples and pears are me Or in this case cherries and pears emblazoned on a Hallmark pack are me with a Joker to literally die for and because of. I'm not certain why the Joker holding a King of Hearts does it for me but I am completely mystified by this card. More so proba

Awrey's Bakery has been around longer than any of us and being that it originated in Detroit via Ontario, Canada it has been ingrained in my psyche since I've been able to think. Not that it has played any prominent role in my life but it has always been in the background especially since a longtime girlfriend lived near one of their main bakery outlets and I drove by it regularly for years. Anyway, this is about cards and not personal nostalgia so let's get on with it. The Apollo Ace of Spades is the prototypical filigreed embellishment with the name APOLLO sat in the center of the large pop in block letters with "Made in the U. S. A." written under it in semi-cursive. Since I have zero experience with Apollo Playing Cards I can't really comment on it beyond that. The Jokers from this pack are a bit curious in that they are laid out in the fashion of a Face Card in two halves with both a torso and head on bottom and top with the hands enfolded, one card havin

With no corresponding advert I've been having an impossible time with dating my Forcolar German Shepherd set within the company's 6 years existence but having just remembered that it is also a Canasta pack and since that game only came to the United States in 1949 it likely dates to then or thereabouts. Which is consistent with the Buttreys advertisement below: Great Falls Tribune , November 6, 1949 ( enlarge ) Not that I don't trust the 1947 copyright marked on the label but I feel that they never varied from that original imprint and that any dates are arbitrary beyond their inception point.  Anyway, a Forcolar Canasta set in November of 1949 was $1.69 for two decks. Which is equivalent to about $19.55 today.

The card is dated 1939 and attributed to the Association of American Playing Card Manufacturers. Judging by the association name and the topic of the Joker is that the loveliest decks on the market at the time were inexpensive ones one would imagine that it was a banding together of smaller card makers but I could be wrong. Anyhow, there were at least three variations of this Joker and Extra Joker that I've come across and very well could be more.  The text is as follows"                                 "Between YOU and ME                                 ...said Queenie this morning at breakfast.                                                                    'I used to think that the Duchess was just                                                                    too, too smart and modish. But no more.                                                                      You should have seen the scuffed-up,                                                       

This Atlasnye (Атласные) (Russian word for "satin") Ace of Diamonds from a Russian playing card deck is based on a design by the Russian painter Adolf Iosifovich Charlemagne (1826-1901) (Адольф Иосифович Шарлемань) from1862.  Although the original deck seemingly had 52 cards this vintage one that I purchased from Ukraine recently only has 36. I will post the entire deck as time permits.

I've been purchasing a ridiculous amount of playing cards because I'm a hoarder of such collectible things and as long as I continue to keep selling other such items for ludicrous amounts on eBay I shall continue in this manner until I topple over. These were bought for $5 at an antique mall in Northville, Michigan yesterday along with another Congress pack which shall be highlighted at some point.  I had assumed that with a name like Glendale that the card maker would be from California and that the Bok Singing Tower would follow suit but I was wrong on at least the latter portion of that supposition. The tower is in Florida and ironically enough there is a town in the panhandle of the state named Glendale. Since there is nothing online about the company I won't speculate further. Era-wise these cards date to 1935 according to the International Contract Bridge Score card, which also serves as a second Joker, included with the set. Unfortunately, the explication card for th

The 21st anniversary of Andrea and Chris's wedding is coming up in September and I would congratulate them on such a milestone except for the fact that I found these cards at a thrift store which likely portends to a failure in the betrothal. Or not. I could be looking too far into the matter. What can't be disputed is that this is the 2001 version of the Gemaco Ace of Spades: Nor can it be denied that the dead eyes of the creepy Face Cards in this set are straight out of a B-movie horror flick. The Jack of Diamonds looks especially unhinged in a school shooter sort of way while the Queen of Spades gives off the Stepford Wives vibe. The King of Diamonds is a more tedious diagnosis. He could be the aforementioned Chris of 2022 (or hell, even the Andrea of this year of our Lawd for that matter) or just your average middle-aged sot thinking about beach bunnies and convertibles while sitting at his windowless cubicle dreaming of Kinghood. 

While Hallmark Playing Cards don't inspire much nostalgia in me, especially in a partial pack, the three Aces included (Spades, Clubs and Hearts) and the Phyllis Diller-esque Jokers were worth the 25 or 50 cents I paid for them. I never liked the cutesy adolescent designs on Hallmark products but I suppose that they were suppose to encourage happiness in housemothers, grandmas and little girls named Susie. The little elfin child watering the garden on a checkerboard pattern would do just that I suppose. Just not for me. Now if I could find a Trump 777 pack from the brand I wouldn't seem so dour about Hallmark and their card sets.

There's a lot to unpack in the gimmickry of the Forcolar Playing Cards deck. Founded by a man named Walter Artzt , of all names, this four-colored deck was meant to avoid confusion in card games. Having sat in as a kibitzer in bridge he saw firsthand a heated row concerning suits (diamonds and hearts in this instance) and the idea of four different colored suits came to him.   When rolling out the cards a large department store in every major city was granted exclusive access to selling the brand in 1947 and the gimmick seemingly sold well enough though it wouldn't last as the company seemingly went belly-up just a few years later in the early 1950s. In the early editions of the cards the Aces were also marked with the initial of the suit. The second edition carried this to all of the Face Cards.  Another notable aspect of the deck were the colorful Jokers depicting a fanned out hand of four different colored Aces and a second one showing a King and Queen playing cards with a v

This card really creeps me out because it blatantly seems like Miss Jester is about to make out with the staff Joker and even he seems miffed by the prospect despite her being quite the handsome lady. I'm not sure who drew this but they should have altered the course.

This Atlasnye (Атласные) (Russian word for "satin") Ace of Diamonds from a Russian playing card deck is based on a design by the Russian painter Adolf Iosifovich Charlemagne (1826-1901) (Адольф Иосифович Шарлемань) from1862. Although the original deck seemingly had 52 cards this vintage one that I purchased from Ukraine recently only has 36. I will post the entire deck as time permits.

My two antique Red Riding Hood playing cards from England are arrived. Both Spades. One a King and the other a Three. Now to collect the other 50 or so cards. A previous sale of an Ace of Hearts bearing that same picture but with square corners surmised that it was likely a Chas. Goodall & Son deck but I haven't been able to verify this. The only other example that I have come is from another collector who also had a rounded corner 6 of Diamonds card.

Unfortunately, I don't have the entire deck.

While I don't believe in fortune telling the concept is intriguing enough for me to have spent considerable time studying the methodology and even doing a dozen and a half "readings." That said, Tarot cards just don't do it for me. It comes across as a Dungeon & Dragons or Lord of the Rings sort of board game to me. Whereas cartomancy via playing cards resonates with me due to the general historical symbolism which has morphed but retained much of its early intent.  Regardless, I'll still buy and collect Tarot decks because I like cards and printed matter in general. Here is The Devil card from the 1972 Hoi Polloi Tarot deck partial set that I bought yesterday for a reasonably cheap price of $9. From what I've read the deck is basically a neon technicolor counterfeit rendition of the standard Rider Waite tarot deck with some attributes whitewashed from the palette. I plan to post the entire partial deck in due time.

I usually don't open sealed packs of vintage cards but the shrinkwrap on these Thomas De La Rue Linette Playing Cards was tattered and looked to have incurred slight moisture exposure. Plus the box has one flap torn off and and and... I'll eventually use them for a cartomancy reading when the spirit hits me. The obverse is a generic blue pattern of varying geometric shapes and filigree. According to the World of Playing Cards site the colored joker shown below appeared around 1955. Which is when the Ace of Spades for the De La Rue brand also changed from the one shown above to a slightly altered version before undergoing another modernization.

Unbeknownst to me at the time but I've posted a William Makepeace Thackeray transformation card previously. He'd conceived of the idea of such a set of cards while on board the steamer Canada en route to the United States in 1852. He soon grew bored of the project and 21 of them were published posthumously in 1876 as part of The Orphan of Pimlico which his daughter edited and refined with the original drawings apparently getting a face-lift for the new publication. Additional cards which were more racy and racist in nature were seemingly excluded. Had they not been of such a nature they likely would have had an official release in the general card market as Thackeray had envisioned upon conception of the deck, though it was seemingly a disjointed project. While the whimsical nature doesn't appeal to me the vibrant colors contrasted with the starkness of the black ink definitely does. I shall endeavor to post the entire published deck as well as various miscellaneous found

One of the earliest mentions of using playing cards as a social invitation comes from The Spiritual Quixote: The summer's Ramble of Mr. Geoffry Wildgoose. A Comic Romance by Richard Graves in 1773. Its mention in Mrs. John King Van Rensselaer's The Devil's Picture-Books: A History of Playing-Cards from 1890 inspired me to look for the passages: "A lady, who is disgusted with the world, desires half an hour's conversation with Mr. Wildgoose, as soon as he is at leisure."  Of course, I botched the quote on the card but... anyway, there were rules for what card should be used and by whom but surely it was all in jest said within a romance so should we really use it as a guide? Of course! Some cards mentioned are the Queen of Hearts (too trite to send to a fine woman); Jack of Diamonds (never inquire of a fine man's health under such auspices); The Two of Clubs (appropriate for duels and challenges); Black Aces (entirely discarded in correspondence with ladi

Scanned and complete as shown. There are some great illustrations for the Nile and Revelation Fortune Telling decks included, though these are readily available on eBay with the Nile deck being the more valuable of the two.

The Chattanooga Star , July 27, 1908 I knew that there was a reason that I was so quickly enamored with the Mrs. John King Van Rensselaer woman and her books about playing cards as soon as I heard of her. She, like most extremely rich people, had divided lives of both prosperity and tragedy .  So far, I've found instances where Mrs. Van Rensselaer's son John threatened to kill her, calling her a selfish peacock for not lending him $5,000. He was later self-committed to a mental hospital and the charges of threatening to murder his mother were set aside. The Kansas City Times , April 6, 1903 A few years beforehand she and her equally rich and very elderly aunt got into a financial scuffle over 30 cents postage due and she was all but disowned by the woman whom she cared for for half a decade when she became an invalid. The matter was latter blamed on a black house servant whom had resented the woman's intrusion into the estate.  All the while Mrs. Van Rensselaer kept adding

I bought this card for the creep factor as it looks like some kind of Hitchcock movie advertisement for a dark love affair, with his tie resembling a waving flame that will burn them both to a crisp if the line between Hearts and Diamonds is traversed when breaking their bubble of separation.  As for the cartomancy meaning: "Traditionally the Seven of Hearts denotes a lover's quarrel. It is also a card of credulity and faith symbolized by the linked hands of children. The quarrel may be no more than a tiff which can clear the air for a better understanding between the participants. However, where the Seven of Hearts appears, it is wise to warn the Querent of a situation in which he should guard his temper lest words spoken in anger should form a permanent rift between himself and someone whom he loves.  "The phrase 'Lover's quarrel' should not be taken too literally. The card may indicate a disagreement between any two people who are devoted to each other suc