Teh One Who Knocks
02-19-2013, 12:14 PM
By Louise Gray - The Telegraph
http://i.imgur.com/GhelIjX.jpg
The historic poster, thought to date from the 1860s, spells out the prize for a lottery in the form of a pictogram.
But baffled museum curators cannot work out quite what the lottery is offering players.
The poster is being displayed for the first time as part of an exhibition on the history of games and gambling at Abbey House Museum in Kirkstall in Leeds.
Pictograms were a popular game in Victorian times and even before. Jane Austen heroines would write pictograms to one another in their letters.
The poster is using a pictogram to advertise a lottery in which players can win up to £30,000 in cash as well as other prizes.
http://i.imgur.com/EWiq6Q0.jpg
Even the location of where to buy a ticket, Cornhill and Charing Cross in London, is in pictograms.
But curators have not managed to decipher the full meaning of the advert.
Kitty Ross, curator of social history at the museum, is asking the public to help.
“This piece is an advertisement for a lottery. There are lots of bits of it that have been puzzling people,” she said.
"We have figured some of it out. The bits that were are puzzling us for ages are near the end.
"For example there is a globe and two dice. "We puzzled for ages on that one, thinking it could be anything. Then we suddenly realised it was paradise [pair of dice]. So it's quite corny, full of wordplay and puns."
This is what the museum has deciphered so far. Can you work out the missing words or suggest alternatives to those that have already been guessed.
“Catch fortune when you can as every man would rather get money than not. The attention of all is called to the new lottery in which by a small risk they may get ? They should therefore hasten to the nearest lottery office and then by purchasing even a share they may secure what they desire and which cannot fail to make ? go if money be their deity in an earthly paradise.”
http://i.imgur.com/GhelIjX.jpg
The historic poster, thought to date from the 1860s, spells out the prize for a lottery in the form of a pictogram.
But baffled museum curators cannot work out quite what the lottery is offering players.
The poster is being displayed for the first time as part of an exhibition on the history of games and gambling at Abbey House Museum in Kirkstall in Leeds.
Pictograms were a popular game in Victorian times and even before. Jane Austen heroines would write pictograms to one another in their letters.
The poster is using a pictogram to advertise a lottery in which players can win up to £30,000 in cash as well as other prizes.
http://i.imgur.com/EWiq6Q0.jpg
Even the location of where to buy a ticket, Cornhill and Charing Cross in London, is in pictograms.
But curators have not managed to decipher the full meaning of the advert.
Kitty Ross, curator of social history at the museum, is asking the public to help.
“This piece is an advertisement for a lottery. There are lots of bits of it that have been puzzling people,” she said.
"We have figured some of it out. The bits that were are puzzling us for ages are near the end.
"For example there is a globe and two dice. "We puzzled for ages on that one, thinking it could be anything. Then we suddenly realised it was paradise [pair of dice]. So it's quite corny, full of wordplay and puns."
This is what the museum has deciphered so far. Can you work out the missing words or suggest alternatives to those that have already been guessed.
“Catch fortune when you can as every man would rather get money than not. The attention of all is called to the new lottery in which by a small risk they may get ? They should therefore hasten to the nearest lottery office and then by purchasing even a share they may secure what they desire and which cannot fail to make ? go if money be their deity in an earthly paradise.”