Help me date an oracle deck please

Hello all! I have been lurking for a while but finally joined.

Can anyone help me date an oracle deck? The images are very similar to the piatnik Cartomancy deck 1904

http://www.piatnik.com/english/playcards/tarot.htm

Its a 32 card deck and the paper is not coated. Here is a pic of 2 of the cards and the card back. I can upload more pics if it would be helpful.

http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=jmwyiogzkgn&thumb=5

Thanks to anyone that can help!!

Ben

I think I still have information that might help you when I researched a similar deck. There were two companies that published most of these multilingual card decks in the early 1900's. I'll have to search my computer files.

I don't have a definite answer for you, ZenBen. But they are somehow similar to the 1904 deck which is called "Biedermeier Aufschlagkarten".

What might be of help to you is the publisher's name that is printed on the Stalost card: "Ceská grafická "Unie" a. s. Praha". So it's a czech publisher from Prague.

The language used on the cards is also interesting. Today such cartomancy cards usually are titled in German, English, French, Italian, Hungarian and Croatic (at least the Gypsy cards are, I'm sure Kipper cards from differ much from it). However, the cards you are searching for are entitled in German (upper right corner of the text field), Polish (upper left corner), Russian (lower left corner), maybe Hungarian (lower right corner) and another Eastern European languages I don't recognise (could be Czech?, in the middle). This is indicating that these cards were aimed at Middle and Eastern European countries, maybe those belonging to or surrounding the K.&K. monarchy.

Astraea Aurora


ETA: The "Art Deco Wahrsagekarten" by Piatnik bear some similarities, especially as your Stalost card looks a lot like the picture on the box.

Thank you both for your help!

The site "Ask My Cards" says

"the Biedermeier Aufshchlagkarten by PIATNIK (32 of the cards are identical to the Gipsy Zigeuner Wahrsagekarten & similar to the Art Deco fortune telling cards)"

I think...these are copies of the older Biedermeier deck, updated with new languages and published by "Ceska graficka unie a.s. Praha" (Czech Graphics um hm um, probably United? of Prague). The inclusion of Russian makes me think "recent." However, you say the cards are uncoated. That's odd, as modern mass-market cards usually have some kind of water-resistant finish.

At any rate they look lovely!