Sunday, October 4, 2009

Antique Fortune Telling Games

Here are some of my favorite antique fortune telling games.
The first two are Halloween themed, with a great design of a witch and her cauldron, and date to the 1940s.

The "Fortune Telling Favor Set" is a small box that contains a set of tiny metal charms. The hostess would insert these charms into a cake, and the guests would hopefully find the charms and not swallow them! Each charm has a corresponding fortune: there's a pipe, which predicts "your pipe dreams come true"; a thimble
(spinsterhood); a baby (that's an obvious one); and several more.

The large witch game of "Hallowe'en Fortunes" is a simple spinner fortune teller. You spin the wheel, and the number that shows up in the cauldron matches a fortune printed below. I tested it this morning, spun the number 6, and it said: "Your fortune is good, you see, For you will contented be." Whew! Glad I didn't get 9: "At 50, you'll be grumpy, fat, round and very stumpy."

The last game has a very ponderous title: "Fortunescope: The Prognosticator of Human Destiny." It's another spinner type, and was printed in 1935. I love the graphics on this one, of a mysterious swami and his crystal ball.

No comments:

Post a Comment