John Van Rensselaer and His Mother

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 to her vast collection of playing cards, including the first deck ever produced in America, and writing her books, two which delved into the history and uses of playing cards in all manners.

Curiously enough, I bought Mrs. John King Van Rensselaer's book "The Devil's Picture-Books" from the local and legendary John King Bookstore in Detroit.

Comments

A Card Within a Card: 3 Jokers and Theirs

As ruminated upon in a previous post here are three more Jokers who are depicted wielding other cards within their own. The first one is openly presenting the Ace of Spades while concealing three others with a mere Diamond peeking out over one corner of the trumvirate. On the second Joker, from a Scandinavian deck, The King of Diamonds is figured prominently as the Joker leans upon it. His poppet Joker is also holding an Ace of Hearts. What it all means would depend on the manufacturer and artist, I suppose. The last specimen from Longfield Games features an Ace of Spades as the Joker stands upon a depiction of the world as a globe which seems almost 3/4 there but not quite whole. All interpretations of this and the preceding ones would be mere speculation and without knowing the artist and his source inspiration it would mainly be a stab into the void. Which is basically what this entire blog consists of.

Tart Rhymes

I came across this excellent booklet from The U. S. Playing Card Co. on Instagram and then tracked down its source to eBay where I took advantage of the generous photos on the listing and saved them in e-book form because it's the right thing to do for posterity's sake. The booklets contains a very short sequence of rhymes that make for one bizarre folktale that wouldn't cut it in today's cancel culture. Also displayed in the small booklet are some card packs produced by the company which is very helpful towards dating the cards for novices who don't have access to the company's historical records.

cardomancy

Search This Blog