Valuation: OOP decks with printing errors

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 28 Mar 2005, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Rusty Neon	28 Mar 2005
To the extent that I collect decks, it's not for investment per se. However, I'm still wondering about the following issue. One of my vintage Thoth Tarot decks is a circa 1969 Thoth Tarot deck (published by Llewellyn, printed in U.S.A.) complete with two-part box. The cards are in near-mint condition. The two-part box is good. The deck has two errors: (1) The first error is varietal. It seems that some of the Thoth Llewellyn U.S.A. decks have the number '8' missing from the 8 of Cups, while some decks don't. Mine has the number '8' missing. (2) The second error seems to be unique; and that's the one I'm most curious about. The back to one of the cards (10 of Swords) was double-printed. These two printings of the back design were not in registration with each other, so that the back design for the 10 of Swords is in double, if you understand what I mean. The registration of the two printings differs by about one-quarter of an inch from each other. Me personally, I wouldn't have bought this particular specimen of this deck if I had known about the second error. I'm curious, though, as to whether the market value of my deck is increased or whether it is decreased because of the existence of the second error (i.e., the back design), and if so, by how much, ballpark. Also, any comments about the first error? How frequent was it? The '8' is also missing from my 8 of Cups card in my Llewellyn, printed in Hong Kong deck. Thanks in advance!

tarotbear	28 Mar 2005
Dear Rusty Neon ~ I have no clue how such things value/devalue. All I know is that people collect so-called 'collectables' (direct references to manufactored collectables such as Beanie Babies) which aren't worth a dime unless you sell them! I never understood why a manufactored collectable of a stupid stuffed animal could sell for 100s of dollars but a genuine 100-year-old teddy bear in excellent condition doesn't. :smoker: Perhaps you should check out a antique market that deals in 'paper' - sells photographs, signatures, stuff like that- and ask if a misprint makes an item 'collectible' or just a 'curiousity.' Then again, with the correct hype and a high reserve on eBay you could make this year's rent!

Lillie	28 Mar 2005
I don't know about your countries, or about Tarot cards, But here in Britain stamps or coins with misprints are very valuable. There is also a particular Harry Potter first edition with a misprint that is supposed to be worth loads. But there are many other misprints that are worth nothing. Maybe you will be lucky! Here's hoping for you.

Jeannette	30 Mar 2005
You've actually posed a rather interesting question, Rusty Neon. One would assume that if there was something inherently more "interesting" about a misprint, from a collector's standpoint, then the value would be higher than for a "correct" copy. However, tempting as it is to want to draw a similarity between coin and stamp collecting, and tarot collecting, I think perhaps it's an apples-and-oranges thing after all. With stamps and coins, a misprint is definitely more interesting than a correct print. But then, there's relatively few parameters for judging what makes a stamp or coin "interesting" -- at least as compared to tarot. With tarot, however, there's potentially a world of "interesting" in every card. Not only do you have publication history to consider, but also aesthetic value (there's some of that in stamps/coins, but not nearly as much), symbolism, historical underpinnings, psychological/spiritual considerations, and many other angles too numerous to list. So an occasional misprinted card, while perhaps interesting in some regards, can potentially detract from the deck's interest in other ways. For example, Lo Scarabeo recently released a couple of decks -- the Witchy Tarot was one of them, if I recall correctly -- where the completely wrong illustration was printed on a card. So you'd end up with two copies of the same illustration, even though the titles in the card borders were "correct" for a complete deck. Does this make these decks more valuable? I think not. I think most tarot enthusiasts would rather have all the illustrations correct rather than one omitted and a duplicate illustration in its place. Add these considerations to the fact that at Tarot Garden, we never get requests for misprinted decks through our search service, and I've not really run across anyone lamenting about a desired "misprint" on the chat boards and other venues where folks with our particular mania hang out. In order for a manufactured object to have value (in the monetary sense), people have to want it. And I don't see much evidence that people want the misprints. Conversely, while I'm not seeing much demand for misprints, we do see some level of demand for particular editions of a deck, when the variations are relatively easy to discern. The Vertigo Tarot is one obvious example, where the first edition was larger, better packaged, and the book was hardcover rather than softcover. As a result, some folks really only want one edition or the other, and the first edition generally brings higher prices on the secondary market than the second. Another example: there's been an upsurge of interest in the early (pre-USG) 2-part "white box" Thoths -- like the one you have. Not because of potential misprints, but because the borders were plainer, and didn't have all those extra parallel stripe-lines of the later editions. I even had one customer tell me that she was told this edition was more "powerful" than the later ones. Don't know where that rumor started, but... who am I to judge such things, I guess. Just my opinion, based on observations-to-date. Tomorrow, things may change, and "misprints" may become the hot new tarot collecting trend. I'd keep an eye on Maddonna -- if she "gets into" misprinted tarots, the value of your vintage Thoth decks may soar. ;) -- Jeannette The Tarot Garden

Grizabella	31 Mar 2005
Another thing to consider is that any collectible is only worth what someone will pay for it. Rumors fly about this or that being phenomenally valuable to collectors, but if you don't know the collector or collectors who will pay that for it or have a way of getting your item in front of them, then probably what you've got isn't that valuable. If you only have a way of putting a "collectible" deck out in front of people in your own geographic area and you're in the Bible belt, for instance, it's probably not going to be worth a plugged nickel.

The Valuation: OOP decks with printing errors thread was originally posted on 28 Mar 2005 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.