Oh dear...Shopping sprees?

I have bought three decks in the past two weeks. I don't plan on getting any more in the near future, but I'm kinda scared that I will. :\

The biggest issue I have is that when I get a new deck, I like to spend some time with it - just sit with it, talk to the cards (yes, it sounds weird, but it helps me), look at the cards and try to see their meanings in the new images. (This step is especially important to me with decks like the Art Nouveau decks where the pips' images often have little to do with the cards' meanings.) It's going to take me a while to "digest" these new decks.

Anyone else go on Tarot shopping sprees? What's the most decks you've ever bought in a short period of time?

I'm pretty sure I've bought 5 or 6 at once or within a couple of days a few times I am more restrained these days and am buying a lot less.

I do consider myself a collector though so I don't feel the need to do anything except look through a deck, although new decks tend to hang around in my living room for a few weeks to a month before joining the rest of the decks - nice to have them to hand for looking though again or comparing with the decks I use for reading.

I don't know if I have the strength to look back.

I know that the largest number was eight decks in a single box I bought from a fellow AT member. Who knows how many came from other sources that week/month. A dozen is probably a conservative estimate.

I don't say I'm finished adding decks because that always brings more that I have to re-evaluate.

Don't worry the shopping sprees happen, then it becomes an addiction and then you spend all your money on decks and become homeless. Oh sorry we were talking about you. Just kidding...but it can be a bit habit forming, I remember a time when I allowed myself only 2 decks a year. But lately (6 weeks) I've picked up about 15 decks. I know I can't possilby study them all right now, now I call it a collection! I wonder if its tax deductible? Yeah.. probably not.

FadeToWhite said:

I have bought three decks in the past two weeks. I don't plan on getting any more in the near future, but I'm kinda scared that I will. :\

The biggest issue I have is that when I get a new deck, I like to spend some time with it - just sit with it, talk to the cards (yes, it sounds weird, but it helps me), look at the cards and try to see their meanings in the new images. (This step is especially important to me with decks like the Art Nouveau decks where the pips' images often have little to do with the cards' meanings.) It's going to take me a while to "digest" these new decks.

Anyone else go on Tarot shopping sprees? What's the most decks you've ever bought in a short period of time?

Click to expand...

I went on a 4 or 5 month shopping spree for decks earlier this year. That is when the collection bug bit me. I was driven to acquire every deck that ever called my name. Thank the Divine that is over! I would even receive decks that I didn't remember buying. I think I was temporarily insane. I bought around 70 decks in that time (I really don't want to know how many). I now find that I don't want to buy a deck right away - I'm more interested in working with the ones I have. I see new ones and my reaction is "Meh! I have one like that but it is already mine, so I like it better." I have only a couple of decks on my wish list now and I'm thinking of culling down the collection to the ones I really love. I would like to get below 100.

FadeToWhite said:

Anyone else go on Tarot shopping sprees? What's the most decks you've ever bought in a short period of time?

Click to expand...

A lot of 116 decks, books, sets and cases. A second lot of 100 decks. I think those were the two biggest single purchases. There have also been various lots of 30-60 or so.

So don't worry about your three decks in 2 weeks. That's nothing.

Rodney

LOL. Three decks in two weeks. To me that shows enormous self control. You are a paragon for us all.

I don't think I've ever bought more than 3 or 4 at the same time, though I did once walk into a tabacconist here which had just had a superb delivery of OOP/ Belgian vintage decks & I scooped up about 4 or 5, snorting as I did so.

But mostly I buy online & I buy a day or so apart so that I have a steady shower of tarot gently fluttering down all month, day after day, brightening dull days. I hate it when they all arrive at once.

Oh but let's be shameless, I've had months where I've probably bought twenty decks. Maybe more. I'd like to say I'm more controlled now. Erm... but I can't. I really wish my tastes wouldn't keep expanding. It would be so much easier if I was narrow-minded and set in my ways. But many are trades, which - as we all know - is the equivalent of free decks (well it is when justifying to spouses & partners etc...)

I've actually run out of decks to buy right now. Any suggestions?

fade, are you starting to get the idea that nothing you said in the original post sounded at all weird or alarming to most of us?

...and also that we're happy to enable you to join in our sickness? the most i ever bought in one day was a lot of 9 decks (it was a SUPER deal, still quite pleased with that one i gotta say) and i then technically bought 5 more at a used book sale. but since i didn't receive the lot the same day, it was almost like it didn't happen. ahem.

Le Fanu said:

But mostly I buy online & I buy a day or so apart so that I have a steady shower of tarot gently fluttering down all month, day after day, brightening dull days.

Click to expand...

this is... beautiful. *wipes a tear away*

The more I think about it the more I seem to remember I have also had packages arriving with 8 or 9 decks in. I had a lovely one from Mr Somerville last year; maybe 8 decks, Lenormands, Oracles, facsimilie playing cards, tarot decks, all wrapped up & boxed like something out of the 19th Century.

I love the fact this place makes my small collection look so reasonable. When ever anyone says 'another tarot deck? Surely you don't need any more' I can tell them about the collections of the wonderful people here who have soooo many more decks than me Then they look shocked and say they never knew there were so many different decks....