How Many Decks Are There?

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 05 May 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Kiama	05 May 2003
I was thinking about when I would stop collecting. I've already passed the 78 decks mark (One deck for every card in the Tarot deck), and decided to calculate what 78 x 78 was.... 6084. I want to know if there are actually that many decks in the world! (Not copies of decks, but decks themselves) Whether they be in print, out of print, limited edition, whatever... How many are there in the world? And is there any way to work out how many there are? Could WE try and work out how many there are, and put together a list of every single deck available? The list would obviously change with each new deck, but it's still viable, isn't it? It would just be interesting and useful to see how many decks there really are. Kiama

Astraea	05 May 2003
Kiama, my tarotholic friend, if you have already collected 78 decks, I would venture to say that you are doomed to gather even more. And with all the new decks coming out every couple of months, it might be a good idea to dedicate a room where you live to the cards -- a tarot hostel, as it were. :) I, too, have wondered how many tarot decks exist -- what a job it would be to discover all of their names and whether or not they're in print, or in-print but unavailable, etc. And there would need to be a list of oracle decks. A few months ago, I read somewhere that there are over 450 tarot decks, but there must be many more than that now. What's a tarotholic to do!? :(

Rusty Neon	05 May 2003
The danger with compiling a list is that you may discover some other decks you want and need. :)

Astraea	05 May 2003
That's for sure! Especially rare, out-of-print, expensive decks! :)

Gerbear	05 May 2003
The Tarotgarden has 932 decks in its' database, and Jeannette told me last week that she has over 200 more to enter, when she gets the time. In the Manteia Courier - 1998-99, a collection of 965 decks is listed. There have been many more issued since then. So I'm about 800 short of a full deck (collection).

HudsonGray	05 May 2003
There's at least 400 shown on Aeclectic here, and Tarot Garden like they say has many more, and if you start looking at German suppliers they list decks we've never even heard of, as well as a site over there in German that's for tarot deck designers (stumbled onto that one a few days ago, but lost the URL).... Good luck, the number is probably around 3,000.

The How Many Decks Are There? thread was originally posted on 05 May 2003 in the Tarot Decks board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Tarot Decks, or read more archived threads.