Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1912 — CARDS TELL STORY [ARTICLE]

CARDS TELL STORY

Collector Has Wonderful Assortment of Pasteboards. Philadelphia Woman Who Has Devoted Twenty Years of Her Life to a Unique Study—Has Packs From All Nstlons. London. —An American woman who is interested in the history of playing cards asked the superintendent of prints In the British museum not long ago who was the world’s authority on cards and card collections. “I want to consult the best book,” she explained. The superintendent took a volume from a shelf and gave It to her. “This is the highest authorityhe said; "the author of this knows more queer .facts about playing cards than any other living person. She has the largest collection in the world herself. And this is the best book on the subject that has ever been written.” The author is an American woman. “‘The Devil’s Picture Books, by Mrs. John King Van Rensselaer,’ ” the American visitor—read,- ; “Buthaven’t you anything else? I’ve read this, and I wanted to know if there wasn’t another authority I could consult. __l am collecting material for a book.” “You’ll find all there is to know about cards in that one,” the man insisted, and his questioner sighed. “I wanted to find out more,” she said. “I know this „ book by heart. You. see, I am Mrs. John King Van Rensselaer.” The director gasped, and Mrs. Van Rensselaer proceeded to establish her identity by means of a letter from the Smithsonian institution in Washington. Then she began to search the print room of the British museum, where the card collection is kept, and to consult the museum’s books. Mrs. Van Rensselaer’s cdirection, as it now stands, is the most comprehensive and most valuable, as .well as the largest, In the world. Out of it she has given to various American museums their assortments of old playing cards. ‘I am quite sure that every public collection in America has come out of tills private collection of mine/' she said. “I am sure that I have gathered together all the strange and historic ' playing cards that are shown in America today ” “Playing cards, you Bee." Mrs. Van Rensselaer went on, “may be studied under three grand divisions. There are fortune-telling cards, gambling cards and the various kinds of educational cards. Educational cards are not of particular interest and gambling cards are but the modern adaptation of the old fortune-telling cards. These fortune-telling cards are by far the most interesting, and it is from them that ope can read strange stories of the history of the world and the customs of the people. “Fort.une-telllng cards are an evolution of the great Egyptian mysteries. They were first brought into Phoenicia, Greece and Italy by the Egyptians or gypsies. I know that a great many people do not believe that the gypsies are descendants of the old Egyptians, but I do, and my Btudy has confirmed this belief. “The use of fortune-telling cards may be traced back to the rites connected with Marduk, in the Bible, and his son Nebu. In chapter 17 of the ]soffk“of Numbers —the divine oom--ffianda are glventiFcSnSSlFT&FeSraS? The people believed in the fortunetelling and the oracles, and the for-tune-telling cards were an important feature in their life.