The Bohemian Fortune Telling cards

This new deck, by BabaBarock, is based on a central European system of cards (that used to be known as "gypsy cards".
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[@oxidmytruk4994]

Thanks for the review! We are waiting for pre-order!🥰

[@annikboyer3395]

Gorgeous!

[@TarotTea]

Very excited for this, will the pre order be opening soon?

[@babastudio]

Thanks! Pre-orders were supposed to open yesterday (!) but it will be early next week instead now. This is because we decided a few weeks ago to also issue a limited edition (550 only) of this deck in what is our normal "tarot" sized cards. Although this style of card is normally small (like Lenormand) people were asking for a set of larger cards and we decided that option is a nice idea. So, everything about getting mock-ups made and listings up has taken a bit longer than expected.

[@aeonxvii6311]

I would be interested to know the earliest dates and locations for this group of decks. Is it Vienna, Austria? And from there, they spread to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany etc. The Coffee Grounds Cards were created in Vienna in 1794, which Hechtel then copied for his Game of Hope Deck, which later became the Lenormand Deck. But the cards in this video are in the group of decks typically called Aufschlagkarten (Service Cards) or Wahrsagekarten (Fortune Telling Cards), and then later Zigeunerkarten (Gypsy Cards). They seem to have been created from around 1820. What is the earliest date and location that you are aware of? Thanks.

[@babastudio]

It's a good question, and we are addressing the history in the companion book (and to some extent the LWB). It depends what you would class as really belonging to this group. We have just bought a deck - Orakelkarte [Oracle Cards], [Nürnberg: Johann Ernst Backofen], that, fascinatingly enough, combine German-suited cards with pictures that are recognisably in this "fortune telling cards" pattern. So they are probably an interesting example of a transition from the use of playing cards for fortune telling, to the use of specialised cards. They are, of course, German not Austrian. I don't think the evolution and history of these cards is straightforward - you can see that as they evolved, they drew in different influences and the history isn't a straight line, it's a bit more convoluted.

[@BabaStudio1]

@@babastudio Sorry, I meant to say that the cards I am referring to are from 1817.

[@StellaWaldvogel]

@@babastudio It's interesting, isn't it? There's some similarities to French and Italian Sibilla and the Kipperkarten from Germany as well, but it's hard to prove anybody copied anything. (Personally, I don't even think that Hechtel copied the coffee cards, there's no evidence that he ever even saw them.) They seem to be based off of European folkloric motifs. Reynard the fox is clever, deceptive and full of tricks, he's found his way into Lenormand. But travel a bit to Eastern Europe or Italy and he becomes a cat. (Cats can be very good at putting one over on us, lol.) Same concept, different image. Jealous people can be dangerous, and Jealousy card often depict someone holding a knife. Etc. Surely at least some of the ideas started in emblem books? I can't wait to see what you managed to dig up, you're good at this and you have access to material we never lay eyes on stateside. Looking forward to the book and decks!

[@aeonxvii6311]

@@BabaStudio1 There is a cartomancy deck from Vienna, Austria, by Ignaz Eber, dated 1805, which has the card names - Misfortune, Falsity, Discord, Unexpected Pleasure, Fortune, Death, Widow, Thief, Room, Illness, Child, Thoughts etc. and the same pictures we see in later decks from different regions, so that’s the earliest example I am aware of.

[@aeonxvii6311]

@@StellaWaldvogel There are 32 cards in the Viennese Coffee Card deck; 29 of them feature in Hechtel’s Game of Hope deck. As far as the Fox is concerned, that card appeared in a German Manual on Coffee Grounds Cards dated 1763. The same manual also had Key, Ship, Stork, Tower. Those cards are not in the Viennese Deck, but were still listed in coffee grounds divination manuals. So that is now 34 of the 36 Lenormand Cards. Well yes, we could argue that Hechtel never saw the deck itself, but I think we can conclude that he saw a book on Coffee Grounds Cards, as 34 out of 36 is too many to be a coincidence. Yes, the symbols their roots in European Emblem books, and also coffee grounds and tea leaf meanings from Eastern Europe and Turkey. But if you look at the numerous decks created all over Europe from 1790 - 1900, it is clear that different countries copied each other, as the card names, images, meanings are just too similar to be a coincidence.