Tarot decks vs. Playing cards

I suppose we all know the difference. I'm musing here for a while - I might end up asking a question, if you're lucky.

48 hours ago on my way to work with a bagful of Tarot decks, for reasons I'd prefer not to explain, I found myself wandering into a tobacconist. Yes, I used to smoke years ago, no I haven't lapsed. Before I managed to come to my senses and locate the exit, a deck of playing cards leapt into my handbag, at minimal cost ($2.00 Australian, half the cost of a cup of chips). The sides, top and bottom are green, with white writing, the bottom labelled "No. 2002". In a flimsy cardboard box that is already giving way, the front has a compiled image assembled from three cards out of the pack, the back has a different composite image of three other cards. There is no publisher's or printer's name anywhere - they were probably too embarrassed. The front and back of the deck is labelled, through the composite image, "World Cup Playing Cards" in slightly smaller font on the back. It has the regulation two Jokers - both of them Umpires - one a red Joker, the other a black Joker. The black Joker wears a red jersey. It also has the regulation four suits, but the two you'd expect to be red are actually pale pink. I believe the printer was saving costs on ink. They are about the size of the pocket RW, and are completely unvarnished and unlaminated. The photos are in full, lurid colour, badly photoshopped to enhance colour. You get the full gamut of soccer behaviours: kicks, falls, grimaces and rude gestures. I know absolutely none of the faces, but that's not surprising - blood sports and TV are two things I don't take much interest in.

I suppose I acquired this item because I have a set method of deriving particular and precise timings, and for upwards of twelve years I've used the Ancient Tarots of Bologna for my timings, and perhaps if I used a conventional playing deck, I'd score an extra free Tarot deck instantly (one that hasn't any idea how to function as Tarot!).

So with this shocking item still in my bag I wandered into the local tourist-trap today, to say hello to the part-owner and chat with her and see if she has any of those nice watered-silk squares I like to wrap decks in and currently can't afford <grin>.

Dammit if she didn't have an assortment of playing cards! Hers were over four times the price, and came in transparent plastic cases that clicked-shut. There were a few that drew my attention: Landmarks of Australia, Wildlife of Australia, Native Plants of Australia, Native birds of Australia and Aboriginal Art. I couldn't afford to buy any, of course, so I left empty-handed.

They were a class act - but unfortunately, they weren't Tarot. I briefly considered coming back when I was cashed up for them, to "add to the collection". But I don't collect playing cards - in fact, until a day or two ago, I didn't even own a single deck of playing cards and the one I now own is completely unused.

And now, I'm wondering about collecting Tarot decks. Is it like a "gateway drug" that leads people into darker addictions, seducing me into the assembling of indiscriminate collections-of-collections, or even just subliminally suggesting that anything printed-on-cardboard is collectible? Just how, exactly, was I able to justify even considering coming back for those perfectly useless decks by the thought of "adding them to the collection" when I simultaneously recognised that I do not collect playing cards?

And how valuable will this no-name World Cup deck be in a few years when it's been OOP and unobtainable for a few years? Who, even, are the people and the teams pictured on it? It's all a great mystery.

At least the Mysteries of the Tarot are intimately familiar and well-known mysteries, but with this deck I am completely lost. I don't understand it at all. Where are the Majors - do you buy them separately? I'm as completely mystified by it as someone who picked up their first Tarot deck last week is, and I don't even have an AT-equivalent to go to, and tell them I'm the biggest cheese out, and ask beginners' questions! <laughter>

(What do you use playing cards for, anyway? Divination? Mulch?)

I kind of laughed when I read this.

But I will mention (in case you didn't know...which you probably did): Spades correspond with swords, clubs correspond with wands, hearts correspond with cups, and diamonds correspond with coins. We know for a fact that normal face cards have been used for divining purposes in the past. I've even seen a renaissance painting of two girls reading for each other.

I know that there are some Tarot collectors who also collect decks of playing cards. I'm not one of them. I can't afford to be one of them. My bank account is already groaning under the burden of collecting Tarot decks. I resolutely refuse to look at playing card collectibles and forums.

Unfortunately, after successfully confining myself strictly to Tarot decks for all these years, I now find myself sliding into another direction: oracle decks. I recently broke down and bought myself a Lenormand. (I already had an Amy Brown oracle deck, but it doesn't count since it was a gift.) And then, just days later, I bought a copy of Madame Endora's Fortune Cards. Arrrgh!! It's like playing Whack-a-Mole. I beat the collector's impulse down in one place and it just pops up in another.

Alan

<points at Alan triumphantly> SEE???

It's not just me!

The cards are MAKING us buy them!

Hey Nisaba,

You should read my poem, Suspension. It's in the other thread with the same title.

(Forgive me for spamming. It's just, I feel a little lonely It'd be cool if you read it...

I have a small sub-collection of playing cards It's definitely my tarot collections fault, I never even looked at rectangular bits of card with pictures on before I got my first tarot deck.

(well, actually, I suppose I did have one of those collectible card games and we all know that they're a slippery slope...)

OK, you know that Tarot cards are the Debil's Picture Book, right? And that they are a direct-line descendant of playing cards?

They're evil. They are using government mind-control techniques to make us buy them. We have no free will.

And, yes, playing cards can be used for divination. So can dominoes (my mother had a book once that explained how to do it). So can movies. No, really. I once had a coworker "read" my personality by giving him a list of my favorite movies, and he had me completely nailed.

I'd stay away from shops that carry these kind of things. First, Tarot cards, next it will be playing cards, then postcards (which you will eventually figure out how to use for divination), then business cards (you will drive yourself mad trying to figure out how to use them for divination) then you'll be rolling card stock into little syringes and injecting the ink directly into your veins.

I recommend you get into a rehab program ASAP. You're sick. You need help.

<laughter> Thank you.

In my non-tarot buying years, I used to buy playing cards. Nice playing cards, not just any old deck (not that Im suggesting yours belongs to this category ) because I genuinely liked them. I have a drawer (as opposed to sprawling shelving unit) full of playing cards. I still like them, but I think they are a more obvious collectible than tarot, so the completist tendency has to go seriously out of the window. I have a tendency to go for the more historic decks. I love playing cards still and sometimes read with them. I also have some older tarock decks which have exquisite pips.

But other slippery slopes don't tempt me anymore, but for those on a budget, playing cards can help to allay the deck urge. You get the opening shrink-wrap, smelling & shuffling new-deck-compulsion satisfied without spending too much money...

Curtis Penfold said:

IBut I will mention (in case you didn't know...which you probably did): Spades correspond with swords, clubs correspond with wands, hearts correspond with cups, and diamonds correspond with coins. We know for a fact that normal face cards have been used for divining purposes in the past. I've even seen a renaissance painting of two girls reading for each other.

Click to expand...

That totally depends on the method that you use. I used the Playing Card Oracles one, and the suits aren't related to the tarot suits, but to the elements:
Diamonds = Fire
Clubs = Air
Spades = Earth
Hearts - Water

And yes, playing cards have been around for a long time. Longer even than the tarot so say. You're right, i too have seen a lot of pantings portraying girls and woman reading normal playing cards. Personally, i find them fascinating, but not as a collector's item (for me, not that they cannot be collected).