The Vera Sibilla/Gypsy Oracle Versus Austrian Traditional Zigeuner Fortune Telling Cards: What's The Difference?

Comparing the 32/36 card traditional Bohemian Zigeuner deck with the 52-card Vera Sibilla/Gypsy Oracle

You may remember when I was introducing the 52-card Italian Vera Sibilla/Gypsy Oracle aka Sibilla della Zingara decks, that I said that those cards were very like German and Austrian “Gypsy” or fortune telling cards which originally had only 32 cards (later increased to 36) So I wanted to take a quick look at this smaller Austrian Traditional Gypsy Zigeuner Cards version, and compare the decks… which will in turn help us when we start looking in more depth at the Kipper cards.

I haven’t given these cards their own section as, to be honest, we’ll just be repeating quite a lot we’ve already covered extensively elsewhere. (You’ll notice there are one or two cards that appear in the French Sibylle des Salons, too, rather than the Italian decks, so there’s definitely some cross-pollination here)

Don’t forget, you can find all the deets about both the Italian Vera Sibilla/Gypsy Oracles and the French Sibylle des Salons below.

Now, the version of the Austrian deck I’ve been using in some of my readings here on the Daily Oracle is the Piatnik Traditional Bohemian Fortune Telling Cards with their No. 1901 design. As you will see, with a few exceptions, nearly all the cards are present in some form in the Vera Sibilla deck. What you don’t have are numberings or playing card references on these cards. So they are much more like the Gypsy Oracle/della Zingara version of the deck, although generally, you don’t read these with reversed meanings. No reason why you shouldn’t, of course.

Here, I’ve put the initial 32 cards in order according to their German titles. In terms of meanings, most of the images/ideas should be VERY familiar to you by now!

The cards are (L-R)

Constancy: As per the Vera Sibilla, although the Godlike image is very different.

Message: A message, meaning, information or communication. This could be verbal.

Letter: News, a letter or document. Note that we have both Message and Letter.

Thief: As per the Vera Sibilla.

Jealousy: Suspicion, ill will. This is a card that DOESN’T appear directly in the Vera Sibilla/Gypsy Oracle, but you can see that it has links to the Foe card.