Rameses Fortune Telling
The Rameses Fortune Telling Cards were manufactured by Chas. Goodall & Son Ltd, London, c.1910, around the same time as Rameses The Egyptian Wonderworker, was performing.
Rameses Fortune Telling Cards, c.1910
Rameses Fortune Telling Cards were manufactured by Chas. Goodall & Son Ltd, Camden Works, London, c.1910, around the same time as Rameses The Egyptian Wonderworker, the successful magician illusionist (see image below), flourished. The cards have fortune-telling interpretations printed at the top and bottom of each card, and are presented in a mock snakeskin box which includes an instruction leaflet explaining how to shuffle and lay out the cards for readings, plus a rough outline of the meaning of each card. The back depicts a double-ended Egyptian scene.
Many fortune-telling packs share a repertoire of symbolic items such as clouds, a key, the sun, a coffin, and so on. Standard playing cards have been widely used for fortune-telling and over time the single cards in the pack have acquired certain fortune-telling meanings. In a number of cases these meanings are printed at the edges of the card, as in this example.
Above: The Rameses Fortune Telling Cards, manufactured by Chas. Goodall & Son Ltd, Camden Works, London, c.1910. 52 cards + extra 'Subject' card in box. The pack continued well into the 1920's after the tie-up with De La Rue.
Below: Rameses post-card, c.1910. It is not known whether the success and popularity of Rameses the Sensational Wonderworker had any influence on Goodall's pack of fortune-telling cards with the same name, but it is a curious coincidence. Rameses did in fact appear in Camden (possibly at the Bedford Theatre) in 1910. Image and information about Rameses the 'Sensational Wonder Worker' kindly supplied by Chris Woodward.
See also: Argentinean Tarocco • Book of Fate • Cartas Blancas • Cartas Gitanas • Cartomancy & Divination Cards • Edyta Gdek Tarot • 17th Century Fortune-Telling Cards • 72 Names Cards • Geistliche Karten, 1718 • German Fortune Telling cards, c.1818 • Jason Ennis Tarot • Minchiate • Mlle Lenormand Cartomancy • Naipes Tu Destino • Picture Book of Ana Cortez • Picture Show Zodiac Fortune Telling Cards • Ramses II Tarot • Self-Nurturing Solitaire • Tarocco Bolognese • Tarocco Piemontesi • Tarot Egipcios Kier • Welsh Tarot • Tarot
By Simon Wintle
Member since February 01, 1996
Founder and editor of the World of Playing Cards since 1996. He is a former committee member of the IPCS and was graphics editor of The Playing-Card journal for many years. He has lived at various times in Chile, England and Wales and is currently living in Extremadura, Spain. Simon's first limited edition pack of playing cards was a replica of a seventeenth century traditional English pack, which he produced from woodblocks and stencils.
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