The Fortune Cup
From Mystic Tea Room
In this installment of "From the Land of Tea," 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.
- Patreon Release Date: December 21st, 2022.
- Public Release Date: December 21st, 2023.
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To place this work in context, please read the following introductory pages
The Fortune Cup
The Fortune Cup is the somewhat generic name given to a genuine rarity, a cartomancy cup containing 52 playing cards that was made in England in 1965 by the Johnson Brothers Pottery on their popular 1960 Snowhite Regncy swirl shape, with gilded rims, and probably decorated in their Canadian plant. It was designed by an extremely elusive couple who signed their names "Verna A. and John W. Meredith," copyrighted the cup in the U.S.A., and promptly disappeared.
The Johnson Brothers Pottery was among the world's largest manufacturers of table ware, and exported quite a lot of dinnerware to the United States, but as far as i can tell, they never made another divination cup during the entire run of the company, from 1882 to 2015.
I have not found any newspaper or magazine advertisements for The Fortune Cup by this design team, but they were definitely American, not British, because in 1965 they took out an American copyright on "The Fortune Cup" name and a drawing, which was subtitled "Cross of Playing Cards." The copyright notice reads as follows:
- MEREDITH, JOHN W.
- The fortune cup. See MEREDITH, VERNA A.
- MEREDITH, VERNA A.
- The fortune cup. [Cross of playing cards] Drawing. © Verna A. & John W. Meredith; 12 May 65; GU3863O.
The content of the copyrighted "Cross of Playing Cards Drawing" is unknown to me, but one guess is that the drawing depicts a card layout of some kind. There are quite a few "Cross" layouts used by fortune tellers, from the Celtic Cross to the Cross of Fifteen, but without the picture itself, it is impossible to know what was intended, or how this drawing relates to the actual tea set shown here, beyond the obvious fact that they were both released the same year.
Cartomancy tea cups are not common, but this cup is so hard to find that in all my years of collecting, i have only seen it put up for sale twice, once in 2011 without a saucer, and once in 2017 as a complete cup and saucer set. The rarity of the Meredith Fortune Cup comes about because it was not a regular issuance from the Johnson Brothers Pottery and was not marketed by them. Instead -- like the Zancigs Cup of Destiny, made by the Anchor Pottery; Genevieve Wimsatt's Chinese Fortune-Telling Teacup, made by the Canonsburg Pottery; and the Creative Art Products Romany Cup of Fortune, made by Cavitt-Shaw -- this was a custom job, designed by, and delivered to, a small home-based business, in this case, Verna A. and John W. Meredith.
Who they were and where they lived is still a mystery, but if more information comes to light, you'll see it here.
DIV-TLR-FOME
catherine yronwode
curator, historian, and docent
The Mystic Tea Room
Special thanks to my dear husband and creative partner nagasiva yronwode for illustrations, scans, and clean-ups.
