Conventional Playingcard System
Note: Any standard playingcard deck can utilize the conventional playingcard system, such as this example "Berlin pattern" deck. Queen of Hearts

Several playingcard decks have been enhanced to create what are known as "Fortunteller Decks". Fortuneteller cards are capable of being used for regular playingcard games or read using the conventional playingcard system. However each deck is intended to be used with their own unique fortune telling manuals, which have card interpretations and spread layouts that differ from those of the conventional playingcard system.

Example Fortuneteller Decks:

Two of Clubs - Caravan of See'ers Fortune Telling Playing Cards  Caravan of See'ers Fortune Telling Playing Cards  - (blue version)
Why: Styled after old-time fortuneteller cards. Read similar to Tarot. Differing upright and reversed images, with corresponding upright and reversed printed meanings.

Six of Spades - The Hermes Playing Card Oracle  Hermes Playing Card Oracle
Why: A fortune telling playing card deck with sensible imbedded pictograms. Converts to a Lenormand if you remove the twos, threes, fours, and fives.

Four of Hearts - Inner Eye Oracle  Inner Eye Oracle
Why: Traditionally styled and read forecasting playingcard deck with clipart images and associated keywords. Diverse Court imagery.

Jack of Clubs - Kadar Fortune Cards  Kadar Fortune Cards
Why: Fortuneteller cards with a Penny Arcade Machine theme. Very unique Spread method. The cards' meanings are printed along the card edges.

Queen of Hearts - Retroracle  Retroracle
Why: Polish iron curtain era themed fortune telling playing card deck with underlaid pictograms. Converts to a Lenormand if you remove the twos, threes, fours, and fives.


Gong Hee Fot Choy

Gong Hee Fot Choy is an interesting playingcard fortune telling variant invented by Margarete Ward, that has been with us now for a century. It is a classic pronouncement oracle, which requires that all the shuffled cards be dealt onto a "House" tableau before reading. It uses a standard playingcard deck, which has been reduced to a 32 card pack by discarding the Twos, Threes, Fours, Fives, Sixes, and any Jokers. Essentially this will create what is known as a "Piquet" pack, which is commonly used to play the German card game of Skat. Most Houses in the tableau use both a cards Suit and Rank for interpretation, but a few Houses use only a cards Suit.

The system originally consisted only of an interpretation manual and an unadorned paper tableau board for laying the playingcards. It was assumed that you would be using your own deck of standard playingcards, but later editions of the manual also included as a bonus a 32 card Piquet deck of Chinese themed playingcards.

An Early Interpretation Manual
An Adorned House Tableau Board


Notes about the Card Decks:
   The selected card image has no significance other than to exhibit the decks artwork style.
   Click on the Flip Through Icon [] to watch a video showing more images of the cards in the deck.
   The "Why:" paragraph below the card image is a blurb describing what makes the deck worthy.
   Click on the decks Title to preview the user manual that comes with the deck.
   Click on the card Image to read a reviewers externally linked comments about the deck.
    (reviews/videos were chosen for their illustrative value only, and should not be construed as author/store endorsements)

It should be noted that while the forecasting playingcard meanings for individual cards have varied considerably across time and region, they were never (until just recently) derivatives of either the Tarot Minor Arcana or Lenormand cards. Traditionally, Court cards are uniquely interpreted as indicating persons with differing visual features (lighter hair, darker skin, etc.).