Need a REALLY gentle shuffling method

For weeks and weeks I have been waiting for my Quantum Tarot ( I allready had to send it back once when there were several cards missing!) I finally go a copy in my hands. My excitment did not know any end when I hold this stunningly beutiful and innovative deck in my hands for the first time and started to shuffle.

15 minutes later my heart is now broken. I do not know if it is me that does something wrong in my shuffling ( have not been a problem with any other decks I own) or if it is just the quality of the cards that is very, VERY fragile. But after 15 minutes to me normal shuffling ( a smaller piece meets the larger piece and mix gently) I have allready had to bring out my paperglue TWICE to glue back part of the pictures that was partly torn from its back. Never in my years as a taroter I have experienced anything like it! As I said I am really heartbroken because I really love this deck and was so looking forward to start use it and to get to know it. But if it gonna continue like this I for sure cant use it without being afraid of ruining it. :-(

So my question is to the community out there if you know a super-gentle method to shuffle the cardes that is thurough as well?

/Anna - with her sad face

I have a 1882 deck I read with daily. I have used it for 25 years or more and this is how I shuffle it: I handle it carefully and I shuffle by placing each card on a seperate pile. I usually make about 10 piles on a flat surface., but this varies depending where I am shuffling. Then I deal out each card on the piles randomly and sometimes put them upside down because I read reversals. Then I put each pile together back in one large pile, always by placing some piles upside down and some right side up. Then I deal to my spread. I have never torn a card in 25 years, but I have bumped some corners now and then, but only slighty.

Yeah, I use that same method, only 7 piles. I can't get the hang of hand over hand shuffling (but I can riffle shuffle like a Vegas dealer, weirdly enough) so I use that way. It takes awhile, but it makes for a nice time to mull over the question. Sometimes, I cut the deck into as many tiny piles as I can, 10-15 piles, with a few cards each, gathering them up randomly, then move on to the 7 piles.

Maybe its a sign that you should spend time with this deck as a meditation deck as opposed to doing readings with it?

That's what happened with the Golden Tarot (not Kat Black's, but Liz Dean's).

I chipped it just getting it out of the box.

I bought two decks at the same time, the Quantum and the Universal Dali, and I found the Quantum cardstock to be as good as any I own. The Dali, on the other hand, was paper-thin and fragile. My Quantum has been seriously shuffled by me and by a friend with a different style of shuffling, and although it is still very new, it has stood up well.

SphinYote: That is a really good suggestion! Since this happened I have had a hard time dealing with going back using it again. This gives me a golden middleway!

Nisaba: That is really good for you! I cant help but wondering if there has been some malfunctioning in the production line or something because everyone I spoke to have said that T shuffles just perfectly.

/Anna

Oh Bloudwedd, that is sad!
have you thought to get in touch with the creators of the deck?

I have a very old playing card deck that has come to me from my Great Grandfather.
I deal the cards into piles carefully- never the same amount of piles; I then stack the piles back together randomly (I guess this is the same as blackairplane) and I deal the cards for the spread from the top of the pile one at a time. As the cards are not laminated I try to handle them as little as possible.

It should not happen with new productions, but I have one deck that I have been using lately that the edges have chipped- and it is very annoying as I really care for my cards.
I have found that the cardstock of Dal Negro is excellent as are the cards issued from the Magic Realist Studio. Some Lo Scarabeo decks are or seem fragile- but to have to repair cards in the first few uses seems very poor production and quality. I would attempt at least to email the creators. I believe the Quantum is a great deck visually. Good luck!
~Rosanne

Bloudwedd said:

Nisaba: That is really good for you! I cant help but wondering if there has been some malfunctioning in the production line or something because everyone I spoke to have said that T shuffles just perfectly.

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Well ... speak to whoever supplied it ... What's the worst that can happen? they can say no, in which case you've lost nothing.