Tuesday, May 9, 2023

A Little Help?




Hello, all. I'm sending out an SOS of sorts, though I'm not optimistic I'll get results.

I recently acquired the deck above. It's thought to be the first fortunetelling deck published in the US, ca. 1830. https://www.rubylane.com/item/404269-T00004075/Turner-Fisher-x93American-Fortune-Telling-Cards

Quite a discovery, wouldn't you say? But it appeared quietly on the Gamecrafter site, with not a peep from any of our deck historians. Of course I ordered.

In about a month, it shipped. In the meantime I noticed it was no longer being offered for sale, and the listing had been marked private. That worried me a little, but arrive it did.

The issue is that two cards are missing: the 9 of Spades and the King of Spades. Very IMPORTANT cards.

I understand that when one acquires an antique deck, it may not be complete. But if one is going to reproduce it and offer it for sale, the fact that there are missing cards needs to be disclosed, at the very least.
 

This is the response I got from Gamecrafter:

The person offering the deck has not responded to emails, of course.
As you can see, they've emblazoned their website on the card backs. Not only that, but they actually put their name on every card of the incomplete deck:


Short version: do not purchase from Shellay Maughan, her site Blazing Hearts Cards, or her Gamecrafter shop.

Anyway, this is my SOS: if anyone knows where there are scans of the complete deck. or even just the King and 9 of Spades, could you point me to them? Thanks in advance.

ETA 5/20/2023: After another email, I received the following from TGC:

I now have the complete deck.

Yes, the seller made it right. But it was a lot more trouble than it ought to have been.
I'm not sure what happened. The deck is still designated "not for sale" on TGC site. If it's offered again, you can probably order safely since she appears to possess scans of the complete deck.
But why not sell the complete deck to begin with? Why ignore emails?

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