Is Love in the Cards?

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3 March, 2015 by katelaity

Okay, here’s a cool thing: I was showing my friend Mary my tarot app on the iP*d and she said, “Oh, I have to show you something.” She came back with this deck of cards and now I have to do some research! The box says ‘Fifth Avenue Playing Cards.’ They look maybe 1920s or 30s, I think. But that’s not all —

Every card has a pair of fortunes on it. They look like stickers, once perforated, so I guess they came with the cards and you put them on yourself if you wanted to use them for telling fortunes as well as playing pinochle.

Clearly they expected the audience to be mostly women. The Kings and Jacks represent men you might meet who might be good or bad for you, but the Queens represent rivals or friends.

It’s fascinating, all the ways people hope to know the future and find whether love awaits them. I suppose sometimes we just want to have a little hope. This seems like a cool way to make something both useful and magical.

Have you ever had your fortune told? Do you read tarot or scrye or anything? I’ve used tarot cards while writing novels to get past stuck places. I used to read cards for other people but I haven’t done it much lately.

UPDATE: Simon Wintle from World of Playing Cards tells me “looks like the cards were manufactured by Western Press, c.1925.” I’m going to get some better scans to send him when I visit Mary next time.