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Grandmother Fortune-Teller

For the right price, and if you hit it lucky in an antiques shop, you could have a coin-operated fortune telling machine—a Grandmother Fortune-Teller—for your game room.

An original Grandmother Fortune Teller costs more than $25,000, but a replica can be had for $6,850.

These machines were popular during the Great Depression, when a lot of people were hopefully seeking any kind of good news. Some arcades feature them today, and they have appeared in a Twilight Zone program and a Charlie Brown movie.

A topnotch one of these machines featured the top half of a mannequin of a woman whose hand moved across cards spread out in front of her. She was dressed as a gypsy, her face was realistic, and her chest rose and fell as she breathed in anticipation of what the cards would reveal about your future. All that for 25 cents per fortune in today's prices—up from a dime in the 1980s and probably a penny or a nickel in the 1930s. And you would get a printed card that told you whether you would be rich or lucky in love or . . . whatever.