What do you do with the extra card in the deck?

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 02 Feb 2005, and now archived in the Forum Library.

rainwolf	02 Feb 2005
This is very random, but amazingly useful for all the tarot enthusists out there. You know that extra card that comes with the deck that has the name of the deck on the back and you cant use it? Turn it into a wall switch! I have an old house and on the light switches are covers that are clear. I screwed the covers off and fit a tarot card in it by cutting off part of the edge and put it in the cover, and now it adorns my wall. I used the World spirit tarot btw, so it was more than large enough to fit in. Oh, and it matches the astrological sign of me too, i thought that was a coincidence, it was the temperance card. This also tells me to save electricity....

Stacie Doll	02 Feb 2005
I use them as a book marks LOL. I never threw one away.

Raien	02 Feb 2005
aha! You've just answered my question, I believe. I've been wondering what the extra card was in my deck (it's the Legend: Arthurian deck, my first and only...so far, lol). It doesn't have anything on it but a dragon-like thing, and at first I was wondering if maybe it was the significator (cause I had no clue what that was, either), then I found out what the significator actually was...and I've been baffled, cause it doesn't have the deck name on it like yours does. And now my mystery is solved...it's just the 'extra card.' Thanks! But now I'm wondering what I should do with it...Not a bookmark, I lose those too easily...maybe when I finally get around to making a bag for my cards, I can integrate it into the design...hmmm...

rainwolf	02 Feb 2005
Or you can get a see through light switch cover and put it in your house! I also have some tarot journals, and in them i take each deck of mine and write all meanings i personally see in each card, adn write them down, and as the intro page, i put the extra card there. One time i made an elaborate stiple art design (around the card) for my barbara walker deck which made it really special since i love stipling (even tho its damn tedious) Oh and welcome to the Tarot world Raien (i guess you're new?)

Raien	03 Feb 2005
Thanks for the welcome! :) Yeah, very new...still unfamiliar with most of the cards. I'm trying to soak up as much as I can though. And I'm afraid I can't really do the lightswitch thing, as I live in an apartment, and I don't think they'd be too happy with me doing my own redecorating, lol. But when I finally, eventually, maybesomeday get a place that I own, I'll think about doing that. :D I like the idea with putting it into the journal, too...that I could actually do, as I've already started a journal...I need to cut out the first few pages though, cause I'd started using the journal for something else a loooong time ago, just a short story sort of thing I'd started writing. Ooh, I wonder if I could laquer it onto my bass...that'd be awesome.

closrapexa	03 Feb 2005
A beautiful idea, a Tarot card being used to give light, to drive away darkness and to make visible all things, if I may be metphorical:) I think I'll try it myself. All the extra cards are in a box. However what do for instance with the two extra Magi in the Thoth?

Simone	03 Feb 2005
closrapexa wrote: However what do for instance with the two extra Magi in the Thoth? How about using them ;)? I leave them in the deck, and it is particularly interesting if two of them show up in a reading; I read this as an evolution thing of the same energy... About the "extra" cards, I never thought of doing anything with them, they are just in the boxes with the LWBs, happily ignored. Sometimes it happens though that I shuffle them inadvertantly into a deck and discover it only by chance... none of them has ever turned up in a reading, though ;)

rainwolf	03 Feb 2005
I have a thoth deck also, and Im not so sure if I would use it on a switch, personally i dont know how id feel with his deck on my wall, as his art is...a little surreal to always look at. Nice stretch to make it metaphorical and 'shed light', it goes with my suggestion of my temperance card telling me to turn the light off and moderate my use of electricity.

OakDragon	03 Feb 2005
I have a special use for the extra cards in my Gilded Tarot decks. I have one of each of the limited edition and the mass market versions. The LE came with a special card that was designed for me and I like using it in readings, but it's made of thicker stock than the cards in the regular version. The regular version comes with two extra cards that have spread diagrams printed on them. I shuffle one of those cards into the deck and when it comes up in a reading, I pull out the extra card from the LE deck and use it in its place. :)

Fulgour	03 Feb 2005
Usually there are two, and I (very often) put one on either side of the LWB and wrap a strip of nice paper around them, making a little bundled packet that will now keep all three pieces together when I take the cards out of the box, or put them back in. It's slick!

WolfSpirit	04 Feb 2005
Use them as bookmarks. And freak people out who don't really know what tarot is, or that I am involved in it :D

Sophie-David	05 Feb 2005
I understand that there are often 80 cards in a Tarot set because they are printed in eight sheets of ten. My first deck was the Connolly and one of its extra cards is the "Gateway to Meditation". I have left it the deck and it has come up in a reading only once - and it obviously was the correct answer to the question - "go and meditate on this". So this started a trend for me, and I plan to leave one of the extra cards in the deck to allow the Tarot to say that the answer is presently unknowable. When I have finished studying the Legend deck I plan to do the same with the dragon card so that it can come up in readings when it needs to.:)

Emily	08 Feb 2005
I use the blank ones as deck protectors, one at the front of the deck and one at the back. I always keep them with the decks they came with.

snowy25	08 Feb 2005
My boyfriend is a runemaster and we sometimes play a game called "fighting". Runes have 24 or sometimes 25 cards. My Shapeshifter deck has 25 Trumph cards so I juse all of them with this game. For those who do not know how to play the game you can alsow do it with two tarot (or rune) decks. Each person uses one deck. You play it with two persons. Each person asks 6 questions. The question one asks is the same question you ask. For an egsample: First person A has to ask a question. Q 1. What does person B think of this relationship? Next Question would be: Q 1. What does person A think of this relationship? The second question is asked by person B and so on. We do it like this because my boyfriend can't read tarot and I can't read runecards.

Neville Surrell	08 Feb 2005
Hello everyone, A really intriguing concept was the addition of a blank Card in the Quest Deck that you are encouraged to illustrate yourself and attribute a divinatory meaning two. Thats a real brain cruncher inventing a divinatory meaning that cannot be attributed to any of the other 78 (or in this case 79) Cards. I am awful for keeping hold of the normal spare Cards. I just got the Gilded Tarot and have already misplaced the two spread Idea Cards.

The What do you do with the extra card in the deck? thread was originally posted on 02 Feb 2005 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.