Cataloging Urge, Calling All Collectors!

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 11 Dec 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Gardener	11 Dec 2004
Hello All, I don't know if you've noticed, but there seems to be a bit of discussion going on about decks with illustrated pips and the other kind (Marseilles). Reading over the various opinions, I realized that many of my favorite decks are neither Marseilles nor do they feature illustrated pips. I love the modern decks that have some form of abstract art for the minors. Won't you pretty please help me list these decks? I'm looking for the modern ones, 20th and 21st century. The minors each show the appropriate number of cups, wands, what have you. OR The minors have abstract art.

Gardener	11 Dec 2004
THE CATALOG as of December 15 Minors show the appropriate number of the suit symbol 20th Century Tarot 9th Demension Tarot Amerigo Folchi Ananda Tarot Art of Tarot deck Astral Tarot Basic Tarot Beginner's Tarot Buddha Tarot – Place Cagliostro Celtic (Davis) Crystal Tarot Dames de Coeur Tarot De la Rea Dolphin Daze Dreampower Tarot Egyptian Tarot (Lo Scarabeo) Folchi's Mondo Nuevo Gareth Knight Tarot Golden Age of Tarot Golden Dawn (Cicero) Golden Dawn (Wang) Haindl Tarot Ibis Tarot Jungian Tarot Knapp-Hall La Corte dei Tarocchi Linol Tarot Louttre B Tarot Lover’s Tarot (Lyle) Maxwell Miller's Universal Tarot Merlin Tarot Millennium Tarot/Dorothy Krause Mystic Tarot (Mystic Meg) Old English Oreste Zevola Oswald Wirth Parrott Prediction Tarot Sacred Circle Sara Tarot Servants of the Light Simplified Tarot Tarocchi dei Colori Tarot du Roy Nissanka Tarot Maddonni Tarot of Ceremonial Magick Tarot of Lasenic Tarot of the Angels – Place Tarot of the Dead Tarot of the Saints – Place Tarot of the Sephiroth Tarot of the Witches Tarroco delle vetrate Tavaglioni's Stairs of Gold Terrestrial Tarot (U.S. Games) Thoth Titania's Star Tarot Ukiyoe Tarot (U.S. Games) Urania Verlag Via Tarot Abstract Minors Margarete Petersen Tarot of the Spirit Voyager Tarot

Nina*	11 Dec 2004
Maybe Gill... they remind in some ways of Thoth..

Rusty Neon	11 Dec 2004
abstract art / appropriate number of suit implements Tarot of the Spirit Tarot _____________________ appropriate number of suit implements Gareth Knight Tarot Egyptian Tarot (Lo Scarabeo) Terrestrial Tarot (U.S. Games) Ukiyoe Tarot (U.S. Games) Via Tarot Tarot of the Sephiroth Servants of the Light

Gerbear	11 Dec 2004
Appropiate number of suit implements; Golden Age of Tarot Oreste Zevola Linol Tarot Louttre B Tarot Tarocchi dei Colori Dames de Coeur Tarot Millennium Tarot/Dorothy Krause Sara Tarot

contrascarpe	11 Dec 2004
Tsk, tsk ..... Gardener missed some in our combined collection ...... Amerigo Folchi Basic Tarot Buddha Tarot of Ceremonial Magick Tarot of the Dead Parrott Tarot of the Saints The two Robert Place decks (Buddha and Saints) could be considered marginally applicable here. The Ceremonial Magick and Parrott are Thoth-based, as is the Via which I was going to add until I saw Rusty Neon beat me to it. Oh, and Tarot of the Transition which I just presented as a gift to SongDeva. Dan

Cerulean	11 Dec 2004
English Lovers Tarot (Jane Lyle) - 1993 (22); 2003 10th Anniversary (78) (St. Martin's Press?) German Urania Verlag, 1990-2004 American/U.S Knapp-Hall Tarot - circa 1920 B.O.T.A, various dates from 1950(?) -2004 - Color Your Own U.S. Games editions, marketed in U.S./Europe, pre 1990 French Grimaud Fournier Italian Several Lo Scarabeo decks pre 1995, Italian editions Several Di Vecchi, Italian editions Japanese (with Chinese editions as well) Several Japanese decks P.S. I"ll add to the list as I remember them or list...

Lee	11 Dec 2004
Appropriate number of suit symbol: Prediction Tarot Mystic Tarot (Mystic Meg) Art of Tarot deck Titania's Star Tarot Beginner's Tarot Jungian Tarot Golden Dawn (Wang) Golden Dawn (Cicero) Merlin Tarot Dreampower Tarot Oswald Wirth Tarot (US Games edition) Tarot of the Witches Ibis Tarot Tarot Maddonni La Corte dei Tarocchi Angels Tarot (Place) -- Lee

Bean Feasa	15 Dec 2004
Sacred Circle :)

Jewel-ry	15 Dec 2004
Hi there Gardener, I realised a little while ago that these were my favourite decks too! :) I have many of those already mentioned but also: Angels - Place Cagliostro Tarot du Roy Nissanka I Tarocchi classici Tarocco Soprafino Tarocco Italiano Interesting topic! ~

baba-prague	15 Dec 2004
Yes, very interesting topic. Not sure I can add much to the impressive lists above, but there is one: Tarot de Lasenic (1938)

Gardener	15 Dec 2004
Okay, I have updated the list for modern non-scenic minors. Thank you all! Edited to add: Cerulean, sorry I didn't add the ones you mentioned, I wasn't sure how to list them. Do you have any titles? Thoughts: I am amazed that there are not more abstract art minors. Maybe I shouldn't be, but it seems that abstraction would lend itself so well to Tarot. I guess most abstract art goes into Oracle Decks. Of course, then we have to ask, how abstract is abstract. After all, I included the Voyager as abstract even though it is clearly photos of things. Explanation? Because each pip card is not meant to be a scene, but something impressionistic and not easy to define. The profusion of images makes it non-illustrative, to my mind. How many people see a Voyager card and say, there is too much for me to know what I'm looking at? Shouldn't there be more abstract tarot?

Gardener	15 Dec 2004
Here is my thought which sparked this thread in the first place. I am wondering how people read modern non-scenic pips. Do you just apply divinatory meanings from illustrated pip decks? Sometimes I find myself looking at, say, the Crystal Tarot Six of Wands and visualizing the Hanson Roberts Six of Wands. Or do you use keywords? Do you use numerology/kabbalah/elemental association? Do you look at the imagery until ideas come to you? I am sure that many of us use some combination of the above, but I'm curious if there is one systems that you find yourself reaching for first. I make a conscious effort to work with numerology etc, but find myself more and more supplementing that with ideas from the imagery.

Gardener	15 Dec 2004
What do you think of the Roy Nissanka? It's one I have been flirting with for a while and would love to hear if you have used it and/or enjoyed it and/or want to trade it...

Umbrae	15 Dec 2004
The wonderful and often overlooked Balbi...

Myrrha	15 Dec 2004
Grand Esoterico... the minors for this deck seem to have been the basis for the Crystal Tarot. --Myrrha

Moonbow*	15 Dec 2004
Old English Tavagione's Stairs of Gold

April	15 Dec 2004
Appropriate number of suit symbols: 20th Century Tarot 9th Demension Tarot Astral Tarot Simplified Tarot Apologies if they've already been mentioned.

Gardener	15 Dec 2004
Ah, I'm going to have to ALPHEBETIZE this list, aren't I?

Jewel-ry	15 Dec 2004
Gardener wrote: What do you think of the Roy Nissanka? It's one I have been flirting with for a while and would love to hear if you have used it and/or enjoyed it and/or want to trade it... The Majors and court cards are rich in colour which is a major part of this deck, it adds depth and is at times quite beautiful. The pip cards are exactly that, the correct number of cups. swords etc., for instance the cups are all little (quite english looking) tea cups with lotus flowers for decoration. My imagination makes them fine china! I havn't 'played' with it enough to give an informed opinion but I know that I will, and I feel that when I do it will speak to me. Definately a deck I wont part with. :)

Cerulean	15 Dec 2004
http://www.tarothermit.com/decks.htm If you want more detail on the Di Gumppenberg variations, there's also a thread... Probably too much detail. But so far that is what I know, collected together, as I have to wade through various books and decks. Hope it helps. http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=15670&highlight=di+gumppenberg

Scion	15 Dec 2004
What about the Cosmic Tribe? They straddle the line between pips and abstraction, often with vaguely scenic renderings of the suits.

WolfSpirit	16 Dec 2004
Minors that show the appropriate number and suit symbol: Dolphin Daze Deck - self-published by our own dolphingirl.

Lee	16 Dec 2004
Gardener wrote: I am wondering how people read modern non-scenic pips. I use this method: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=32084 Here's another appropriate-number-of-suit-symbols deck: Celtic Tarot (Courtney Davis) -- Lee :)

Eco74	16 Dec 2004
There is also the 'Tarocco delle Vetrate' ('Stained Glass Tarot') and the 'Spanish Tarot', which is very marseilles-esqe but not considered a genuine Marseilles.

Gardener	19 Dec 2004
Okay, now we have a reasonably complete (or at least very long) list of modern decks with non-scenic minors. So what? Other than giving us a lovely list of decks to compare our own collections to, it's not much good. But as the attentive reader will have guessed, I'm really more interested in how people read cards that don't show people scenes. Most people can find some sort of personal meaning in images that show people, especially people interacting with animals or other people. Stance, costume, expression, these are clues we've been interpreting all our lives. But abstract designs must (I think) call on a different part of our imagination. What happens when we look at a bunch of curlicues decorating a bunch of goblets? Do we just think of keywords? Probably not. So I have this idea that we approach different kinds of abstract imagery differently. Bored yet? If not, read on! I'm going to tackle this question by trying to see if there are categories of abstract imagery. I already started with "suit symbols" versus "really abstract." Now as you know, I've already run into trouble because I put some photo collage decks in the "really abstract" category. But this isn't an art class, it's a question about how our happy little brains play with imagery. So what further categories? I propose, within the category of decks where minors show the appropriate number of the suit symbol: Late 19th Century Occult Traditions Thoth and its descendants Simple, minimal decoration Ornate or with complex symbols Theme/novelty/alternative system grafted on I know there are also a number of modern reproductions of the earlier woodblock and other renaissance decks, but that's too complicated for me to follow, so I’ll leave that to the historians among us. I'll wait a day to see if you want to modify my categories, then attempt to sort the decks on the list...

Rusty Neon	22 Dec 2004
another one for the list: Vertigo Tarot

Jude Buffum	22 Dec 2004
The Housewives Tarot has the appropriate number of symbols in all of the Minor Arcana. :)

The Cataloging Urge, Calling All Collectors! thread was originally posted on 11 Dec 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.