A ‘Fortune’ Teller – In the Truest Sense

By Bennett Owen

Credit: Yahoo.News

Virginia City, Montana sits on the remains of one the most lucrative gold rush sites of the pioneer west. The US Assay Office estimates that $90-million in gold was extracted from Alder Gulch between 1863 and 1889 – and given the price of the precious metal nowadays, that value soars to – count the zeros - $40,000,000,000.

Man with a rocker cradling for gold near Virginia City, Mont. Terr. By Jackson, 1871 Credit: Marion Doss

Now, the popular ghost town is celebrating a lucrative find of a much different kind… namely, a 100-year old fortune telling contraption that’s gathered dust in a back room of the "Gypsy Arcade" which has the nation's largest collection of woking music machines and arcade games from the early 20th century. 

Credit: Ernie Hathaway

The Gypsy Fortune Teller – drop a nickel in the slot and her eyes would flash, and her teeth chatter as a mysterious voice told you your fortune. Yikes! The 'eyes' have it!

The Montana Heritage Commission has found that the Gypsy is one of only two or three “verbal” fortune-tellers left in the world! And magician David Copperfield has gone a step further, saying he believes it’s the only one. He’s reportedly offered $2-million for the relic, hoping to make it the crown jewel in his collection of turn-of the century penny arcade games.

Credit: nicolekiss.blogspot

Now a bidding war has broken out and experts say the piece might ultimately fetch upwards of $10-million.  I wonder if one of the Gypsy’s fortunes went something like, “you will fall back-asswards into boo-koo dolores”? Now that’s a fortune worth telling about.

Read the Chicago Sun Times account here.

Virginia City, Montana, c. 1939.  Credit: Library of Congress

Virginia City, Montana, c. 1939.  Credit: Library of Congress