H P Gibson & Sons Ltd.

[Lillie]

Hello

Ijust got a deck of Lenormand cards, they are published by H P Gibson & Sons of London.
They look quite old and come in a cute little 2 part box.

The pics on them are very similar to the deck by Los Scarabo called 'French Cartomancy cards' (orsomething similar.) Though there are minor differences, from the little I have seen of the LS deck. (on Alida)

Anyhow. Anyone else heard of these? And if you have, any idea how old they are.
I am in dispute with my bloke who thinks they are older than I do.

 

[Lillie]

No one else then. Oh well.

The company, Gibson Games, who are what Gibson and sons became were kind enough to answer me, but all they could say is that the cards must be after 1919 when the company was formed, and before the factory and all the records were destroyed by a WW2 bomb in 1940.

So, way older than I thought.
Well vintage, nice.

Cute little box too.

So, if anyone else sees any of these, grab them, they seem pretty rare!

 

[lunafae]

I think I have the same deck. it's in a 2 part brown box with the hp gibson and sons written on it. The deck is bright and colourful one of my cards are slightly bowed but ti has the lwb in it.
I wonder how much it is worth.

 

[Akuts]

I now have two of these HP Gibson & Sons Ltd decks. They both have the Dondorf pictures on them and playing card insets. One is in a two-part black box, with the Dondorf back on the reverse of the cards. It's from somewhere between 1919 and 1928. The other deck is in a two-part brown box and it has a red and white pattern on the reverse of the cards.

Does anyone else have these cards or know anything more about their history?

 

[Gavriela]

Not a lot - the Dondorf pattern came out circa 1880 as far as I know, and was first printed in - Dondorf.

In the early part of the 20th century it was reprinted by Gibson, and also at least two companies made cigarette cards from it - I have an old Carerras one with red, blue, and gold leaf on the back (as well as tiny print saying I can get the instruction booklet gratis from my local tobaccanist). My guess would be that they're mid-1920s.

There was a cigarette company in America that printed them too - that's the one where all the insets are heads, though, not playing cards. I think.

Mine are about half the size of a standard Lenormand, and the colouring is exquisite. The board is surprisingly good, too.

But they aren't in high demand, so they aren't worth a lot of money. Russian-printed Blue Owls from the same time period go for quite a lot on ebay - I'm not sure why since they look just like Austrian Blue Owls, to me anyway. A Carerras or HP Gibson goes for around €10 - sometimes more, but that seems to be the price when I've tracked auctions.

I'm probably wrong about some of this, but I'm sure somebody will come along to correct me - then we might find out more.

 

[Akuts]

Oh, well, it looks like no one else has a Gibson. What a pity, I thought I might learn a bit more about the company.

Not a lot - the Dondorf pattern came out circa 1880 as far as I know, and was first printed in - Dondorf.

In the early part of the 20th century it was reprinted by Gibson, and also at least two companies made cigarette cards from it - I have an old Carerras one with red, blue, and gold leaf on the back (as well as tiny print saying I can get the instruction booklet gratis from my local tobaccanist). My guess would be that they're mid-1920s.

There was a cigarette company in America that printed them too - that's the one where all the insets are heads, though, not playing cards. I think.

Mine are about half the size of a standard Lenormand, and the colouring is exquisite. The board is surprisingly good, too.

The Carreras cards are from 1926. I have a set of small Carreras with head insets. They are cute, aren't they? I haven't heard of an American company that made them.

The Dondorf pictures are beautiful. I think they came out in the 1870s. My Dondorf deck is approximately 1880. I'd love to know more about all of these cards. Does anyone have any idea if there are any books on this in English?

 

[Gavriela]

What I meant is I think the Gibson, Carreras, and Virginia Cigarette Company (?? - something like that) all had them around the same time, maybe the cigarette companies bought theirs from Gibson, and that all seems mid-1920s. As far as I can tell the three are roughly contemporaneous.

Is your Gibson one from 1880, or is it a German one?

 

[Akuts]

The Gibson deck in the black box is from between 1919 and 1928. The Gibson deck in the brown box is from somewhere between 1919 and 1940. The third deck is a German Dondorf from about 1800. It might be from as late as 1900, but the box is an older type so I don't think so. The dealer who sold it to me dated it at 1879.

I think you're right that the Gibson and Carreras cards are both from the twenties. Fortune telling cards seemed to be pretty popular then. Maybe if I can find out more about the American cigarette company it might help.

Why don't we have a history section for oracles?

 

[Cerulean]

Gibson seems a toy maker...like Parker Brothers...I think

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedicated_deck_card_game

It's kind of hard to track playing card makers, cigarette card makers and others making novelty items...since usually we who come to these forums originally were fans of more recent tarot decks. But I've become a fan like most of us of older games and divination-related titles, even though the makers of such things were not known for making 'divination tools'...I think the publishing of such things more like novelty items?

"In 1903 H. P. Gibson started up The International Card Co. with one of his first games being “The New Game of Peter Pan”, as J M Barrie's play Peter Pan was all the rage at the time. Even after he had sold The International Card Co. to De la Rue's in 1919, he set up another new company, H. P. Gibson & sons which is still going strong today making card games and jigsaws.The new economic realities at end of the First World War saw the closure or amalgamation of some of the old card firms due to lack of staff and investment..."

So 1920 would be right...

In this case of Gibson & Sons making a card deck...it might be like tracking the original Rider and Sons, publishers who became better known for their divination card decks and titles by fans of such things here...I noticed the name De La Rue and by coincidence, I believe there's an Etteilla-style deck of that publishing company of the 1890s-1920s...but that's a sidebar.

I am thinking how hard it is sometimes to track down the smaller publishers of beautiful, historic and interesting old style cards...whether general oracle, playing card, or tarot...it seems like the most I've seen about Great Britain's esoteric or occult decks that I hear about are after 1910. So it's great to hear if there's decks that would precede the Rider Waite!

There's limitations of looking backward to card publisher histories if we are thinking they originally for divination or occult publishers, as an aside...I was thinking in years to come...perhaps divination fans like ourselves would be checking into a 20th century toymaker like Parker Brothers, who we might know on the aeclectic.net forums in 2008 as those who copyrighted the name of the 'ouija board' name in 1966...Parker Brothers in 1966 was able to buy the rights to the name 'ouija board,' move operations to Salem, Massachusetts (known for haunted/curious history in the U.S.) and sell such a thing as a novelty...if we were divination 'talking board' historians looking backward, we might guess Parker Brothers were occult publishers lost to the mists of history...unless someone remembered or unearthed history on them as a toymaker who was cashing in on a novelty item way back when...

Best wishes...sorry if I misread the info...

Cerulean