Playing-card suits?

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 10 Aug 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Lee	10 Aug 2004
Does anyone know of a tarot deck whose Minor Arcana uses French playing-card suits (Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, Spades)? I'm specifically looking for decks which use traditional tarot concepts for the Majors, as opposed to Tarock decks whose Majors are purely decorative. The only such deck I'm aware of is the Angels Tarot by Robert Place. Raymond Buckland's Gypsy Fortune-Telling Tarot uses playing-card suits, but the Majors, again, are non-standard. Thanks for any help! -- Lee

felicityk	10 Aug 2004
There's one called Tarocco Indovino from Dal Negro: http://www.wicce.com/indovino.html I believe a 52-card version (without the trumps or extra court cards) is also sold, under the name Lo Zodiaco. I've seen both listed at R. Somerville. Felicity

baba-prague	10 Aug 2004
Lee, I think (but need to check) that some of the Central European tarot playing decks (for those not familiar with the distinction, some decks are made for playing the game, not for divination) have playing card suits. Off the top of my head I think some of the Austrian or Hungarian ones would be worth tracking down. I have some of these (some very interesting old antique ones turn up from time to time) and I'll try to take a look.

Khatruman	10 Aug 2004
I have the Cagliostro deck, which uses the French system with the minors, which are pip cards. I have been trying to sell it, though my sales thread has probably been bumped down into the depths of the forum.

The 78th Fool	10 Aug 2004
This won't be much use to you apart from interest value, but have you come across Amy Zerner's Enchanted Tarot (also published as the Zerner Farber Tarot) ? Pentacles, Swords and Wands are as normal but Cups are replaced with Hearts. I didn't think I'd like this but it's done with real insight and works very well. Chris. xx

Lee	10 Aug 2004
Thanks, Felicity, that Indovino deck was new to me, looks like an interesting one! Baba, do you happen to recall if those game-playing decks you've seen have standard Marseille-like Majors, or if they're non-standard? Thanks, Khatruman, I had forgotten about the Cagliostro deck. That one's sort of a hybrid -- the pictures show Marseille-like pips with the standard Italian suits, but then it has French playing-card suits in the corners of the cards (or what playing-card people call "indexes"). -- Lee

Lee	10 Aug 2004
Hi Chris, yes, I have the Enchanted. I like the use of Hearts, and I also like the way all the French suits are worked in as sort of a frame for all the Minors (i.e. the Wands cards all have a giant clover-leaf frame, as in Clubs). -- Lee

Lee	10 Aug 2004
Also, some of the earlier U.S. Games decks like the Angel and the Ukiyoe have playing-card symbols worked into their Minor cards. Perhaps this was an idee fixe of Stuart Kaplan's? -- Lee

Logiatrix	11 Aug 2004
Hi, Lee... How about the Wonderland Tarot? It can be seen in the Aeclectic gallery of decks, but this site displayed more of the minors, so you can see the "indexing" in the corners: http://www.tarotpassages.com/wonder1.jpg :)

Lee	11 Aug 2004
Ah, that's another good one, thanks, Logiatrix! -- Lee

Cerulean	14 Aug 2004
The Ukiyoe was actually done by a Japanese designer working for Angel Playing Card company--Stuart Kaplan had two decks designed in agreement with Angel Playing Cards in Japan in the early 1980's, the funny Marseilles variation and the Ukiyoe. The suits on the Ukiyoe are interesting because the designs also correspond to a Japanese-disguise of Portugese gambling game of cards from around 1600--the gamblers disguised the 52 card suits into bird, flower and animal motifs. I saw design tributes to the developed Hana Fuda card game in the minors--might be just be me. Some earlier decks where Kaplan wrote the LWB or manuals for the decks have a similarity in LWB meanings....I've compared his Tarot Classic with the Visconti LWB and there's a similarity in meanings. The Caligostro was a pattern done in business agreement between U.S. Games and Modiano of Trieste. U.S. Games seems to have partnered with many European publishers and distributors since the 1970s and 1980s... The Alan Tarot of Modiano of Trieste started out decorative, as it was a 1912 design, but meanings were added to the double-headed figures by an Italian astrologer in the 1990s, I believe. It has French pips and the imaginative stories are kind of fun. It's available at Alidastore.com Here's a review: http://www.spiritone.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Reviews/orell.html However when I checked out the Italian Tarocco decks that use Italian trumps and double-headed courts and the French suits, they are more gaming decks or decorative, as you mentioned previously. The Alan Tarocco is the only one that I know of that has been 'extended' to have some fanciful meaning. I'm certain there are others, it'll take me time to figure this out...the above notes are from memory and if people post differently, I'll amend my notes as needed. Regards, Cerulean Mari

Lee	14 Aug 2004
Thanks for the great info, Mari! -- Lee

Cerulean	14 Aug 2004
http://www.wicce.com/egiziano.html This is one of the ugliest decks that I own. It takes: --a bad copy of Jeu des Dames --a strange, almost hand-drawn sketch of other cards --calligraphed Tree of Life symbols --wierd little glyphs--do they look like any card design that you know of, maybe even reference Oswald Wirth or perhaps the kooky Compte St. Germain Egyptian tarot? It may be the 1922 deck that Mary Greer's timeline refers to...I know that I have the 1843 as well as other Etteilla style decks, but cannot recall what the glyph-squiggles mean. Dal Negro publishes this and you will find an English booklet with U.S. Games' copyright--so I believe it was distributed in the early 80s in the U.S. and sometimes it appears in specialty New Age stores. Best way to obtain it is either Trigamo or Alidastore.com For reference, it is fine, but I almost want to say it's NOT standard trumps...this is one of those Italian-European hybrids of the Egyptianized late 1800s to early 1900s (I believe 1914 is when the Cagliostro was published and earlier 1910 Alan Tarocco from Trieste)--so it's somewhere in the realm of 'standard' trumps in terms of history if you accept the premise that the Etteilla-Egyptian trump design was part of the historical design. Here's Mary Greer's timeline: http://www.tarotpassages.com/mkgtimeline.htm Regards, Cerulean P.S. I'll be glad to correct the dates if you see I misquoted MKG's timeline. I unfortunately do not have the LWB of the wierd deck in this post and I say 1914 for the Cagliostro because the majors were redesigned supposedly after WWI, at least that is what Stuart Kaplan's LWB for the Cagliostro implies. If you want further links or info to Modiano decks (Alan, Cagliostro), you might want to pm or email me--they may also not be considered 'standard' trumps, but a design variant of a nearly 200-year-old myth that started with Napoleonic excavation of Egypt.

The Playing-card suits? thread was originally posted on 10 Aug 2004 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.