Bhavana
Hi Bhavana,
I know you were looking for Rhinemaiden's reaction to her new vintage Playing Card Oracles deck, but I just received mine in the mail the other day, and thought I'd post a comparison between it and the US Games version that I also have.
- The cards are the same size (3" x 4.5" or approx. 76mm x 115mm).
- As some have already reported, the vintage deck is a thinner cardstock. It's a smooth matte stock, and feels a little like a nice paper board from the craft store.
- The most major difference, of course, is the card backs. The vintage deck has the swirling pattern all the way to the edges, no border at all.
- The colors are very subtly different: the blacks are more cool-toned black in the vintage version, but this is only a dramatic difference in some of the cards, and mostly in the line drawings of the art. Which is to say I don't notice a huge difference much between the actual spades and clubs, but in the drawings, several in the vintage version have a blacker look instead of the brownish-black look in the US Games.
- The salmon/pink/red color is slightly more pink in the vintage than orange, and the blue is slightly warmer in the vintage.
- The gold is less bold in the vintage.
- Most of the cards still have the little nubs on them where they were detached from the others in the sheet.
- The lettering of the card numbers and image titles is very different. The vintage looks more hand drawn and thinner.
I'm not sure if you were interested primarily in a reaction to the deck in general, or to the specifics of the vintage version, so I'm not sure how helpful I've been! I really do like the deck, even though I haven't settled into a cartomancy system yet. The two "cons" for me with this deck would be 1) the size, since I'd prefer a smaller, truly playing card sized deck (I'd LOVE it if she made a pocket version!), and 2) the element-suit attributions (Diamonds=Fire, Clubs=Air, Hearts=Water, Spades=Earth).
I'll snap a few comparison pictures today or tomorrow and put them up, if anyone is interested.
Extremely helpful, thanks so much! This may sound somewhat shallow of me, but regardless of the subject and symbolism, if I don't "physically" like a deck, I won't use it very often. I am sort of thinking the vintage deck cardstock is similar to some older decks, like the first printing of the Morgan Greer - which isn't necessarily bad, but I just don't prefer thinner cards. I am in the process of buying the USGames version for MoonGypsy, and should have it by mid-week - and I may still get the vintage version, not sure yet...was going to order it last week, but something stopped me.
You may be in luck if you'd like a smaller version of this deck - as has been mentioned here, USG is doing a reprint - and I THINK it is going to be smaller than the first one they did. I am not positive about this - but that is what I assumed from something said by Ana Cortez in the comments section of one of her videos on YouTube.
Pictures would be great, if you have a chance - !
Yes, I saw the Sailor Jerry deck! Pretty funny. I agree that most decks can be used for reading, and I bet that the Jerry deck would have some interesting stories to tell, lol. And that Flickr account really does have great photos. I just came across it a couple days ago. I found some nice cards on it. And the wish list expands again.......
I Know, I Know - my wishlist is out of control, especially now with the addition of the playing cards!!