New Year Fortunes on Good Luck Dice Postcards

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Mancy by Mail: The Dominos and Dice of Fred C. Lounsbury

All of the material you have access to here -- the instructive booklets, the nostalgic postcards, the boldly graphic ephemera, and all of the historical information researched and shared from the mind of the woman who is making it all happen -- can easily fit into one 8 x 10 foot room in an old Victorian farmhouse, but you would never see it without the investment of the time it takes to produce such a site and the caloric input such a site requires in the form of food for the writer, graphic designer, and database manager, as well as the US currency needed to pay for the computers, software applications, scanners, electricity, and internet connectivity that bring it out of that little room and into the world. -- can easily fit into one 8 x 10 foot room in an old Victorian farmhouse, but you would never see it without the investment of the time it takes to produce such a site and the caloric input such a site requires in the form of food for the writer, graphic designer, and database manager, as well as the US currency needed to pay for the computers, software applications, scanners, electricity, and internet connectivity that bring it out of that little room and into the world. So, as you can see, this site is the darling of many, and it is growing at a rapid rate ... but although it is "free," there also is a cost. Your financial support underwrites this cost.

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In the early 20th century, colourful chromolithograph postcards were exchanged on almost every occasion, from birthdays and anniversaries to religious holidays and moments of sentimental thought. Such cards belong to the large category called "topicals," so named because they convey a topic of thought or emotion, unlike "views," which are images of places.

Topical good luck cards, like those for good wishes, or good cheer, can be sent any day of the year, but among the most popular of the good luck topicals of the early 20th century were the New Year good luck postcards, for by setting the tome of the New Year, they carried extra importance. Two types of good luck New Years cards were common -- those that showed images of lucky omens, such as horseshoes, four-leafed clovers, and chimney sweeps -- and those that caught the moment that the luck was actually being conveyed by linking it to the depiction of a fortune-telling device, as if the person who sent you the card had just told your fortune for the year, and it was lucky.

New Year's Eve, with its parties and drinking, was allied to the social act of gambling, and postcards in which the sender took on the role of one who was telling the recipient's fortune for the New Year often did so by displaying lucky combinations of cards, dominoes, or dice. Many such cards were printed in Germany with the greeting ar the bottom blank. They were then surprinted with the New Year's message in any of a number of different languages -- German, English, French, Hungarian, Latvian, Czech, and so forth -- for sale through distributors in various countries. The idea was that the knowledge of dice combinations, especially the popular three-dice readings -- as almost universal.

As this page is being written, the New Year is upon us, and so i shall share some lucky dice cards of the New Year.

A leather dice-cup is tossing out the lucky combination six-six-six, and is surrounded by other lucky items: a golden horse shoe, a pair of Amanita muscaria mushrooms (in German their name is "Gluckspilz" or "Lucky Mushroom"), and numerous four-leaf clovers. The inscription, "Boldog uj evet" is Latvian and means "Happy New Year."

A leather dice-cup is tossing out the lucky combination four-five-six, surrounded by four-leaf clovers. The message is "Good Luck." The card is marked S.D.303 and Copyright 1908 N.G.Y. Th card is postally unused.

A leather dice-cup stands beside the lucky combination six-six-six, surrounded by four-leaf clovers. The message is "Good Luck." The card is marked S.D.303 and Copyright 1908 N.G.Y. The card was sent to Miss Maude Lucas, 1238 Greenwich St., Reading, Pa., and postmarked Baxter (Pennsylvania) in 1913. The message reads exactly as i have written it out here: "Hellow Dot hope you are well haven't herd from you fore a long time, am well the rest are well ans soon as ever Mother."