Fate fortune telling cards
Fate fortune telling cards published by Merrimack Publishing Corporation, USA.
This undated pack of fortune telling cards was published by Merrimack Publishing Corporation, but is actually an unattributed reprint of the Nile Fortune cards published by the United States Playing Card Company, USA, 1904. The only difference is the ace of spades where the original (which displayed the title of the pack) has been replaced.
The same fortunes are written on all four sides or margins of every card, with the court cards representing friends, family and lovers. In this pack there is one joker and one “Significator” card (which replaces the “Life” card of the original). According to the accompanying leaflet which describes how to read the cards, the “Significator” should be placed in the centre of the display. See the instructions►
Above: Fate fortune telling cards published by Merrimack Publishing Corporation, USA. Printed in Hong Kong (undated).
• See the box►
By Peter Burnett
Member since July 27, 2022
I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.
Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.
Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.
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