Rare palm lines: which ones, and how rare they really are
Which palm lines are called rare, from the ring of Solomon to the simian line, what the old texts said about each and which rarity claims have any data.
Rare palm lines come in two groups, and most pages don't separate them. Some have been counted: a few surveys have sampled real hands, so we have percentages for named groups of people. The rest are rare by reputation only: a palmist said so, and others repeated it. This page keeps the two apart, because "rare" means something very different in each.
If you've noticed something unusual on your hand and want to know whether it's special, the short answer is that a few of these are less common than you'd think and more common than the internet says, and that neither fact tells you anything about you.
Rare, with numbers
These are crease patterns from anatomy and medical papers. They have percentages, and each figure belongs only to the group that was studied.
- Suwon crease
- Sydney crease
- Single crease
- Single crease
- What it isThe two main creases merged into one. Often called a simian crease in older sources, a name medicine has dropped.
- What was measured5.0% of 1,664 palms in Ethiopian students. 7.7% of 252 people in Kathmandu. 1.3% of 4,000 outpatients at one Pakistani hospital. 12.6% of 5,196 palms from 3,216 volunteers in Park's Korean study. About 1 in 30 according to MedlinePlus, which calls it "often normal". Its own page: the single palmar crease.
- Sydney crease
- What it isBiesecker's 2009 definition: "extension of the proximal transverse crease to the ulnar edge of the palm". That's your lower main crease running to the little-finger side.
- What was measured1.92% of palms in the Ethiopian students. 1.4% in Kathmandu. 2.5% of palms in Park's Korean study.
- Suwon crease
- What it isNamed in 2010 after the Korean city where it was first described. Belay's wording: "a long distal transverse crease crosses the entire palm". That's your upper main crease running to the thumb side.
- What was measured2.3% of palms in the Ethiopian students. 0.5% of 5,196 palms in Park's study of 3,216 volunteers in Suwon, where it appeared only in men.
These turn up in medical writing, and it's worth being careful about what that means. Researchers study them partly because some conditions are associated with them. That doesn't turn a pattern into a verdict on anyone, and most of the people in those surveys were volunteers, students and clinic visitors going about their lives. If you have a medical question about your hand, take it to a doctor. Nothing here is a health claim, and these aren't personality signs either.
Rare by reputation
Now the marks palmistry books call rare. For each of these, we looked for a count and found none. "Rare" here means that an author, usually Cheiro, didn't see it often in his consulting room. Palm crease surveys don't include them.
Ring of Solomon
Cheiro: "strange marks of mysticism", where the owner "will aim at having the power of a master or an adept". No count exists.
Girdle of Venus
Cheiro: a "broken or sometimes unbroken kind of semi-circular line" from the first finger's base to the fourth. No count exists.
Ring of Saturn
Cheiro: "very seldom found", a curved line "across the Mount of Saturn". No count exists.
Mystic cross
Its own page. An X between heart and head. Percentages online have no source.
Double head line
Cheiro: "as rarely found as are cases of the single line". So this one has a comparison, of sorts, and no count.
The M
Its own page. Called rare everywhere, and we couldn't find one study that counted it.
Compare: Sydney
Measured, above. Included here to show you how close it looks.
Compare: single
Measured, above. Its frequency is known better than any of the others.
Old books carry a lot of baggage on some of these. Cheiro has grim things to say about the ring of Saturn and others have moralizing things to say about the girdle of Venus, and we're not repeating them. Markun, in 1927, had the right response. Of the ring of Saturn, which authors said might confer occult powers or else bring misfortune, he writes: "Again my readers are welcome to accept whichever interpretation may please them, or even to consider it an indication that the subject will soon lose a button on his or her winter coat." The girdle of Venus, he suggests, may show "a love of orchids or a fear of frogs".
We've also left one thing out on purpose: a ranking. You'll see pages with a list of the rarest palm lines. With no counts for most of the list, there's nothing to rank them by. Other marks people ask about, like a mole on the palm, have the same problem.
Are rare lines special?
Rare doesn't mean meaningful.
A crease pattern on 2% of palms is uncommon, and it's a fact about skin. Nobody has shown any of these connects with what a person is like.
It doesn't mean lucky.
Nothing we read tests luck at all. Being unusual is pleasant to think about, and you're welcome to it, as long as it doesn't make any decisions for you.
It doesn't mean something's wrong.
Most of the people in those crease surveys weren't there for anything to do with their hands: volunteers, students and clinic visitors. MedlinePlus calls a single crease "often normal". If you have a health question, a doctor can answer it in a way a palm can't.
It's only rare among who was counted.
Figures range widely from one group to the next. Rare among 252 people in Kathmandu says little about your town. Be suspicious of any "worldwide" number on this subject.
How to check your own hand
Hold your open hand to a side light. Check your two main creases first: does either run right to the edge, and do they merge? That's the one part anyone has measured. Then look up near the fingers for the arcs, under the index, under the middle, and above the heart line. The line tracer lets you mark what you find on a photo of your hand. The palm scanner traces your main lines by itself, and it doesn't try to find these tiny marks, because in our tests it couldn't do it reliably.
Sources
- Belay DG et al. Prevalence of palmar crease patterns among students at University of Gondar, Ethiopia
- Ranjit N et al. Palm creases analysis in students and staff of a teaching hospital in Kathmandu
- Park JS, Shin DS, Jung W, Chung MS. Improved analysis of palm creases
- Biesecker LG et al. Elements of morphology: standard terminology for the hands and feet
- Single palmar crease
- Ali M. Prevalence of simian crease in general population
- Cheiro, Palmistry for All
- Leo Markun, What You Should Know About Palmistry
- Palmistry
See what your own lines do
The free scan traces your main lines on your own photo, and the Complete Palm Reading reads them chapter by chapter, whatever marks you find beside them.
Complete Palm Reading$9.99One payment. No subscription.
Questions people ask
- What are the rarest palm lines?
- We can only rank the ones anyone has measured, and only in the groups studied. Among those, the Sydney and Suwon creases run around 0.5 to 2.5%, and a single crease from 1.3 to 12.6%. Marks like the ring of Solomon or the mystic cross have never been counted, so nobody can honestly call them rarest.
- What is the ring of Solomon?
- In palmistry, a curved line round the base of the index finger. Cheiro calls it a mark of mysticism whose owner aims to have the power of a master or adept. It's said to be rare, and nobody has counted it.
- What is a Sydney line?
- A palm crease pattern from the medical literature, not from palmistry. Biesecker's 2009 terminology defines it as the lower main crease extending to the little-finger edge of the palm. It was found on 1.92% of palms among Ethiopian students, and in 1.4% of people in a Kathmandu sample.
- What is the girdle of Venus?
- A curved line above the heart line, running from near the base of the index finger to near the base of the little finger. Cheiro describes it as broken or unbroken, and Wikipedia lists it among palmistry's lines. Its reputed rarity has no numbers behind it.
- How do I know if my palm has a rare line?
- Open your hand in side light and compare it with the drawings on this page. For the crease patterns, the question is whether your two main creases run to the palm's edges or merge. For the rest it's a matter of what you can see, since our scan doesn't look for these marks.
- Are rare lines lucky?
- Nothing shows they are. Uncommon doesn't mean meaningful. Some of the crease patterns have a medical literature around them, which isn't the same as a meaning, and any questions there are for a doctor.
Rare or not, it's your only copy.
Scan your hand and see your own lines on your own photo.