Your Very First Time .......

The Mythic because I love Greek Mythology and the artwork spoke to me in a way that the yellow-box RWS didn't.

My first was the University Books Rider Waite. A village elder had read my palms in Vietnam, and surprised me with things he could not have known. Later that year (1968) I returned to the states and sought out a deck at the Astara book shop. They had about two dozen and I chose the Rider based on the shop owners recommendation. I kept returning to buy the rest that they had, and voila, my collection was on its way.

My "first" deck was the Connolly. It was the first one I ever bought, and I loved the pink and blue colour scheme, but the deck was impossible for me to read with at the time, no matter how much study I applied to it. This made me sad, because I was fascinated with tarot, and really, really wanted to become a proficient reader. I didn't care for the red/yellow predominance of the earlier RWS, and was getting discouraged about ever finding a deck I really "clicked" with.

I chanced across the Spiral deck in a bookstore. There were scans of the cards available to look at, and it really resonated with me, I loved it! Bought it on the spot, and that was the deck I learned to read from.
It's still my all time favourite.

My first was the Gilded, chosen from this site even! (I live in an unenlightened area and had to order my deck online. So I started with a lot of googling for a good beginner deck. ) I loved the beauty and charm of the scans I saw.

In "person" the deck also offered warmth and comfort, and it's still in my Top Three go-to decks...and always will be!

~Yira

Many moons ago - October 1989 to be precise - a local bookshop had the Haindl tarot in the window with a lot of the cards out of the box and on display. Knew nothing at all about tarot but was immediately drawn to the Tower, Death and that spooky hand on the Wheel of Fortune.
It was seriously tempting but at a decadent 60DM - a lot lot more than a poor serpent could ever afford
But a friend visiting at the time who knew stuff about tarot including various superstitions concerning acquisition bought it for me as a present

Just loved the dreaminess and haunting beauty of the art work. The books were another thing. Seriously scary. While interested in background information, they seemed to find symbolism and deep esoteric meaning in absolutely everything. Decided to not let the book ruin the deck (especially all that numerology nonsense) but to go back to the original instinct of just letting the pictures tell the story

This deck was followed by the Thoth a few years later. Loved the colours and the beautiful geometrical patterns. But was seriously freaked out by the fool and the various incarnations of the magician
But it was only in 2007 that I started looking into tarot seriously. Being fascinated by both art and symbolism, it was only a matter of time before the cards would become an object of craving
Added the Fantastical Menagerie to the collection and that is when the addiction developed beyond all possible doubt

But my collection remains a RWS free zone. That awful original RWS magician is nowhere to be found. And that is the one card that everyone associates with tarot.
While liking a lot of the symbolism - find the old RWS to be so flat and lifeless and often so ugly that it can only sneak in disguised as a clone
(apart from Kat Black's Golden Tarot - why does the Magician always have to be so creepy?)

My first was Tarot Classic. A hard black plastic case, and LWB. I bought it at a local department store, perhaps in 1975? My memory doesn't work well. Those days real decks were very rare in Japan and rather expensive for a local schoolboy.

1978 - A friend and I co-owned a RWS. We were 13. We did many clandestine readings until her mother found out. I am not precisely sure what she did with it, but I believe that she may have burned it. Or given it to the priest. I don't remember.

My friend was "turned over" to the priest - meaning her mom marched her to the church and she got in all kinds of trouble.

Nothing happened to me - as far as my parents were concerned, there was nothing to get into trouble about.

I didn't get another deck, though, until about 1989 or 90. I was too busy for that 10 year period being stupid, or as I prefer to say, "gathering life experience..."

Courtney Davis 'Celtic Tarot'

Do you know, I can't remember where or when I bought this? In my mind, I bought this in some spooky bookshop in December 1992, Christmas shopping with my boyfriend. But I didn't, I couldn't have. How strange!

It must have been later, early 1994 sometime, in a New Age shop in Nanaimo. I'd read Mists of Avalon, was pretty into all of that. So when I saw the Celtic Tarot, it seemed a pleasingly Avalon-esque thing to buy. I remember taking it back to the place I was living at the time, and showing it around, and Dianne - one of the women who worked there - being interested but saying it would be hard to use 'because there were no pictures on the suits.' She showed me her Medieval Scapini. I liked it, a lot.

This fascinated me. I had no idea of tarot, had never heard of it. Should there be pictures on the suit cards? Even so, I didn't buy another deck for a while, spending my time with the Celtic Tarot, looking at the pictures and reading the book. I can't remember if I did a reading or not; I didn't have a clue what to do with these cards, but I did know the pictures and the idea of it captivated.

Next came the Hanson-Roberts, along with a copy of Mary K. Greer's Tarot for Yourself, both bought from the same Nanaimo New Age store. I seem to remember the Art Nouveau Tarot from the same place. It wasn't until my fourth deck, Ferguson's Legend Tarot, that I started to figure out that tarot thingie.

Out of those four decks, the only one I still have is the Legend. The other three are lost, possible still in a prairie barn, or long since sold or given away or goodness knows what. I've no way of finding out. The Legend, though: I don't read with it anymore, but I take it out every now and again. It reminds me of that whole strange period of being in Canada... no, I can't use it for reading. But as a keepsake? It's unique and it's beautiful.

My first deck was RWS, if I recall, the book store I bought it at, only had it, a couple of angel decks and a fairy deck. RWS seemed more of my vision of "proper" tarot. It was my only deck for about a year.
I still use it regularly, it will always be a favorite of mine.

My first was also a RWS. I hated the colors, the art. I did not take my studies seriously until I saw the Giger in 1994. Then I couldn't learn enough. Of course, I couldn't get my hands on that deck until last year but I never forgot those silver gilt edges and those horrible images. The first one I bought for myself was the Gilded and then I went a bit nuts.