Gypsy Lore Fortune Telling Cards (1920s)

Rebbecca left a comment on a previous blog post of mine, telling me about a partial deck she had. The back of the cards were blue with white stars. That sounded familiar to me, so I poked through my collection and found these. I wonder if it's the deck she had! [Scan nearby.]

The Gypsy Lore Fortune Telling deck does not have a date on it, but I would guess it's from the 1920s from the images in the deck. My deck has 43 cards, plus 2 cards with directions for doing a regular reading, a wish reading, and a reading for someone who is absent.

I did a wish reading for a friend so that I could blog about it. I shuffled the cards while she concentrated on the wish, 13 times. Then I cut the deck seven times, shuffling in between: 7 shuffles after the 1st cut, 6 shuffles after the 2nd cut, 5 shuffles after the 3rd cut, and so on until there were 7 cuts. Then I cut the cards into three piles. Three cards from each pile were turned up. If the wish card turned up, it was favorable.

The last of the nine cards was the wish card, so it was a favorable reading.

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On a different note, I wanted to share this link with you: http://www.worldradio.ch/wrs/news/switzerland/archivist-uncovers-deck-of-500-year-old-swiss-play.shtml?24652

An archivist discovers a deck of 500-year-old playing cards, and the article has some wonderful photos of the deck. What a terrific find!