Paticence games and old decks...
http://www.davidparlett.co.uk/histocs/patience.html
Lady Cagogan's Illustrated Games fo Solitaire or Patience by Adelaide Cadogan:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/21642
I found a transformation deck in a gift store while shopping for a 'hostess gift'...strangely, although my eyes were running with hay fever, my nose was sneezing with the strong perfume of the store and my hands were filled with bits and pieces...a lovely box and CARDS jumped from the counter to my fingers.
Someone who was with us laughed while they were browsing hats and I had the cards in my hand and I was trying to peer at them between sneezes and smoky-hazed eyes...
Someone else who knows me all to well looked at the deck and said, "Ah, you could divine with them..." and of course my fingers and heart was saying, "New Toy!" as I sneezed for the umpteenth time.
Hope the above is helpful. I am greedily exploring links and thoughts brought up and wanted to share the free texts hinted at on the web...and the great ideas shared in this topic!
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Incidently, I had recently put together again my oldest playing card for divination set--the Alan Tarot with French suited pips from Modiano. Beautiful deck has a booklet that I had put with some pretty tourista scenic decks to see if I could do something with them...but nada...the small transformation deck and my Alan Tarot card set and booklet seem to go together better...and I have my mini-Harmonious for a nice tarot addition for the 'travel' set...I think for travel, sometimes it's best to have the most innocent and cheerful sets uppermost.
Once in awhile I'll playing with a tarot set at the airport and if it's an old or art repro, sometimes I get a reading with a Death/Devil card uppermost. Hastily I'll put it back into my pack as we line up to go through the X-Ray machine...believe it or not, I was stopped this year (2008) at baggage check because the uppermost card looked really spooky grinning up through the X-Ray...once they realized it was a deck of cards lodged with some funky art pens, they realized I didn't have poison or spooky stuff...and the gentleman checker said,
"Oh I know what they are...I just didn't know your deck was tarot when I saw the first card through the X-Ray..."
I think my Victorian-style patience, Alan Tarocco and Harmonious will be more innocent looking!
Cerulean
