Mutoscope Numerology Vending Machine Cards

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In this installment of "Your Wate and Fate," we take a sneak-peek look at an upcoming page that will eventually be on display to the public. As a Patreon supporter, you have access to the page one full year before the public does.

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Mutoscope Numerology Vending Machine Cards

This week's Patreon sneak-peek page completes our set of 32 comical numerological fortune telling arcade cards published and machine-vended by the Mutoscope Company of Chicago, Illinois, in the 1940s.

The Mutoscope Company was founded in 1895 for the manufacture of stand-alone single-viewer, hand-cranked machines that displayed moving images in the form of a lighted flip-book. What began as a diverse assortment of dramatic and educational short entertainments soon devolved into naughty peep shows. Then, as moving pictures became a popular form of entertainment during the 1920s and 1930s, the public lost interest in the short, silent self-operated Mutoscope reels and the company branched out to enter the vending machine card business, which had been pioneered by another Chicago-based company, Exhibit Supply Company.

Because Mutoscope began in as a maker of coin-operated peep-show reels, the company emphasized pin-up, celebrity, and comic postcards which were marketed primarily in men's spaces, such as bars, pool halls, back-room betting joints, men's washrooms, tobacconists, and liquor stores. Unlike Exhibit Supply, which had both "clean" and "dirty" offerings suitable for any type of venue, Mutoscope cards were not offered for sale in women-safe spaces, so it makes sense that they featured themes like illegal lottery play, risqué or misogynistic jokes, and burlesque cartoons. They sure don't make them like this any more!

With the Mutoscope Numerology cards, the buyer got a mildly mean-spirited joke about the so-called "war between the sexes" or a silly pun, a matching cartoon, and a random set of lucky numbers to bet, framed in a border of talismanic charms, with a standard postcard back so the card could be mailed. The idea is catchy, but unfortunately this card set was put together in an exceedingly sloppy and unprofessional manner. Not only are there typographical errors in the texts, but the art consists of stock printer's cuts by a variety of illustrators working in different graphic styles, including pin-up, big-head, silhouette, and just plain bad -- and several cards are signed: a sweet pinup piece by "Curlander" and seven comic silhouettes with the single initial "W" in reverse-out white. I have not been able to definitively identify "Curlander," but i may have come close, with a family in living in Baltimore at the time of the 1930 Federal Census: The father, Edward Curlander, was an art dealer who ran Edward H. Curlander Fine Arts, and one of his sons, Henry Curlander, worked as a linotype operator at a newspaper. In any case, these pieces of art, probably cut out of magazines or joke books, had pre-set sizes, which the Mutoscope Company's typesetter did not try very hard to work around them, thus creating numerous clashings of text and art. The magenta ink doesn't add a lot of charm either. Still, bizarre as it is, this is a genuine lucky number arcade card set -- the only such numerology set i know of -- and so it deserves memorialization at "Your Wate and Fate." Just be forewarned: if misogyny makes you cringe, stop now and click another link.


(1)

1-15-823:A girl can be a little dear or a little bare.


(2)

1-23-983: A woman "up in the air" harping about something isn't always an angel.


(3)

1-65-982: The only way a farmer can keep his sons on the farm is to move to the city.


(4)

1-88-801: There's no fool like an old fool -- he's had more practice.


(5)

2-40-701: If you want to marry a fortune, go widow-shopping.


(6)

2-48-924: Best way to fight a woman is with your hat -- grab it and run.


(7)

2-48-924: It's better to have holitosis [sic] than no breath at all. (Signed "W.")


(8)

3-54-236: There's more in a grapefruit than meets the eye.


(9)

3-57-453: The good die young, and the old die for various reasons.


(10)

3-95-623: A woman belives [sic] the only way to hold a man is down. (Signed "W.")


(11)

4-98-238: A husband doesn't mind if his wife comes from a fine old family, as long as she doesn't bring them with her. (Signed "W.")


(12)

5-23-792: Some give happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.


(13)

5-28-531: Love makes time pass, and time makes love pass.


(14)

5-81-227: A friend in need is a friend to keep away from. (Signed "W.")


(15)

5-90-663: A new groom sweeps clean.


(16)

6-35-777: The girl with a future avoids the man with a past.


(17)

6-52-632: People who live in stone houses shouldn't throw glasses.


(18)

6-84-528: A wife does a man good, but a gold digger does him better.


(19)

6-99-696: Rarely does a card-player reach the pinochle of success. (Signed "W.")


(20)

7-18-420: Today's liquor is tomorrow's hangover.


(21)

7-27-497: A woman's as old as she looks; a man is old when he quits looking. (Signed "Curlander.")


(22)

7-39-843: The "pun" is mightier than the sword.


(23)

Some men don't fish; they just drown worms.


(24)

8-17-500: When you ask for the daughter's hand, watch the father's foot.


(25)

8-32-567: Love is blind -- lovers depend on their sense of feeling.


(26)

8-57-648: The girl who's pretty as a picture has a nice frame too.


(27)

8-68-388: Some girls get all the men they like, other[s] like all the men they get. (Signed "W.")


(28)

8-92-421: It's fun to be fooled --- with.


(29)

9-14-211: Gossips are the spies of life.


(30)

9-18-328: A man in love fights for his girl, a married man fights with her. (Signed "W.")


(31)

9-19-982: When money talks, women always listen.


(32)

9-61-700: Nudists grin and bare it.

Thanks to my Patrons, who support this work, and to my husband, nagasiva yronwode, for help with scans and social media notifications.

catherine yronwode
curator, historian, and docent
Your Wate and Fate