The Third Roses & Lilies RWS pack

[gregory]

It's an ID I have seen before. I just wish I could remember WHOSE...

[truelighth]

Gerbear is usually good at knowing who's ID is what... or with the feedback. He recognized mine in any case, even with it being scrambled by Ebay. Maybe he can figure it out.


I just looked at the ID of the number 2 bidder.. l***o with only 55 feedback. I wonder if that was Lo Scarabeo, meaning Pietro Alligo. He did bid on the one from Kaplan too. But it could be anyone I guess...

[shadowdancer]

Originally Posted by truelighth

OMG, I wasn't watching the auction (couldn't, otherwise I would have), but I just saw the result. And my jaw just dropped to the floor!

Even I didn't expect it to go that high. I thought it would hit the $2000 easily, since the crackled back Pam-A already sells for that these days. But $6000... *faints again*

Makes me think my deck really was a bargain and I was just soooo lucky!!!

what was the story behind your acquisition if that is okay to ask?? I love reading / hearing these stories

Davina

[The crowned one]

Originally Posted by gregory

---aaaand cheap at the price. That was NOT you, was it, TCO ???

No, I forgot about it, I had gone bowling with friends ( I suck at bowling)... I would not have gone above 1000.00 So no worries for me.

[gregory]

Originally Posted by truelighth

Gerbear is usually good at knowing who's ID is what... or with the feedback. He recognized mine in any case, even with it being scrambled by Ebay. Maybe he can figure it out.


I just looked at the ID of the number 2 bidder.. l***o with only 55 feedback. I wonder if that was Lo Scarabeo, meaning Pietro Alligo. He did bid on the one from Kaplan too. But it could be anyone I guess...

The *** very rarely gives you that close a match. They are cunning that way. Certainly mine bears to resemblance to my ebay ID. And they do have a crackleback. I think it was a crackleback. They have one of the early ones in the red box, etc, anyway - I've handled it.

A blue box crackle sold for MUCH less in November...

[truelighth]

I really wish Ebay didn't do that to the bidders. It was much more fun to see who got a certain deck. I always liked to watch rare decks and see who would get them. But not anymore...

Yeah, you probably right about the Lo Scarabeo. Maybe Pietro was the #1 bidder this time.. ah.. I hope we will find out one day.

[truelighth]

Originally Posted by shadowdancer

what was the story behind your acquisition if that is okay to ask?? I love reading / hearing these stories

Davina

I don't mind sharing. It has been quite some time now, but I still remember the thrill of discovering this deck on Ebay and bidding on it and then to discover I actually won!!!

I bought my copy in 2003 on Ebay. I had seen the copy of Kaplan at the International Tarot Congress in Chicago. He actually let us handle the cards too. And I was totally in love with this deck, but never expecting to be able to ever get one.

Anyway, I suddenly discovered this auction in 2003 on Ebay. I always checked all the old vintage decks. And when I clicked on this auction, I was so excited, because I immediately recognized that this was the same deck as Kaplan's. My dream deck! And I was like.. what! That is the deck, I never thought I would see another, I want it!!!

Of course I was so tense, for almost a whole week while the auction was running. Everyday checking on how many watchers there were, how much it was bid up to. I so hoped nobody else would spot it. I had planned to bid up to $2000. Btw, some extra info, at that time, most old Pam decks still sold for around $300 to $600, I got all of mine in that price range. So $2000 seemed quite high to me at the time. These days even the normal Pam-A with crackled back sells for $2000 already.

When the auction ended, I bid in the last minutes and to my excitement I won the deck. Not for $2000, but for $1225! I have been so lucky! Holly Voley later told me that she was on holiday and therefore missed it. I would have some tough competition if she had bid as well. The deck was send to me from the US (insured of course), which means that I did ended up paying another $250 in custom taxes on it. But still, very much worth it.

The box of the deck I got is a bit damaged. It could easily fall apart, which is why I am carefull with it. It also came with 5 handwritten sheets, which were notes on the major arcana of the tarot, probably written by the first owner. One of the cards, the king of Cups, has a tiny crease on upper left hand corner of card. The book is in mint condition and is inscribed on one of the inside pages dated 1918 to Ida from Margaret. A few pages at top have pencil words written ie Wands and Pentacles.

The seller said this in the auction: We are selling an excellent condition set of Rider-Waite Tarot cards for a good customer. She purchased this particular deck in London's Picadilly Circus in 1973 for 35 pounds. We were told that the purchaser was informed that the cards were the first edition set.

So that is the story of how I got my hands on my dream deck .

[rwcarter]

Pure conjecture here, but I'm guessing the driving factor in the price was the letter. Which tells me that a historian (or very serious collector) was the winner of the auction.

[OnePotato]

Originally Posted by truelighth

.....The box of the deck I got is a bit damaged. It could easily fall apart, which is why I am carefull with it. It also came with 5 handwritten sheets, which were notes on the major arcana of the tarot, probably written by the first owner. One of the cards, the king of Cups, has a tiny crease on upper left hand corner of card. The book is in mint condition and is inscribed on one of the inside pages dated 1918 to Ida from Margaret. A few pages at top have pencil words written ie Wands and Pentacles....

Hello Truelight.

I think you came upon your copy at a time before very many people understood what they were looking at.

I am quite certain that the Rose & Lillies back represents both the first printing and earliest edition of the Rider-Waite Tarot. Non of the technical evidence contradicts this theory, and the letter verifies several points and significantly strengthens it.

If this deck was a re-printed March replacement, I think it's more likely that the letter would not still be with it. I think it remains (still) in the box that it came in, and was never acted upon.

I also think the rarity of the Rose & Lillies is better explained by this letter. It's not that they made very few of them, but rather that most of them were deliberately shredded. I expect that letter went out with every first run deck that was sold. Many people who received the deck with the letter would have taken advantage of the opportunity to obtain the "improved set" that it offered. And all of those decks would have been returned in exchange, and likely were destroyed by the printer along with the rest of the unsold run. It continues to be standard practice in the print industry to destroy work that has been re-printed due to inferior quality, and given that they made the offer to take the trouble to exchange, I see no reason to think they would allow the inferior copies to exist. It's a matter of pride in quality for all parties.

I expect the few Rose & Lillies survivors are from the earliest purchasers who, for one reason or another, failed to take advantage of the exchange. In this latest case, the deck and book are actually in nearly pristine condition, apart from the separation problem. This suggests that it was never used. Perhaps the buyer was not terribly interested, and so didn't feel a need to bother replacing it, and it survives exactly as it was when they received it. In your case, perhaps Margaret, the original buyer of your copy, also didn't do much with hers, didn't exchange it, and eventually gave it to Ida, who did use it, and likely wrote the five pages of notes. Of course this is conjecture, but it fits the scenario quite nicely.

The separation of the layers probably happened from long exposure to heat, as would occur if it spent a lot of time in an attic. (Dampness could also cause the glue to fail, but I don't see any tell-tale signs of rippling, foxing or mildew.) I am not so sure that this particular glue problem was anticipated, or that it was the sole/major basis for the letter and re-print, but maybe it's just one long-term result of what they could see was less than optimal playing card stock.

I suspect that the first print run revealed some production difficulties. As they were not specialized card printers, they discovered that the custom Rose & Lillies pattern designed by PCS was difficult to align with the fronts, and/or perhaps the surface was not not of the best "printability" and/or perhaps the stock was not of the expected quality, etc. (I would be most curious to see an actual Rose & Lillies up close in order to evaluate the technical issues.) So I'm guessing that during the run, or shortly after, they re-evaluated their process, and someone discovered the availability of the better quality crackle-backed stock, which would simplify things and solve their problems. So initially they went with what they had, in order to fulfill the initial orders, and made immediate provision to re-print on the better stock asap, and came up with the plan in the letter to keep their earliest customers happy. (Time allowed for shipment of stock to printer, time allowed for printer availability, time allowed for pre-press and printing and production, time allowed for shipment to Rider's warehouse, time allowed for packing and shipping individual orders all brings us nicely to March, 1910.)

The very slight cropping down of the images from Rose & Lillies to Pam-A Crackle also supports the idea that they initially had difficulty keeping the margins even. Slightly wider margins are slightly more forgiving. This change would have been made on the original stone.

I have a hunch that the crackle pattern may have been pre-printed by the paper distributor, and so accounts for the consistency over the later printings of Pam-B, C, D, despite the complete re-working of the artwork for Pam-C. If Rider had printed it, I would expect the crackle artwork to change along with everything else that changed on Pam-C. It would be most interesting to compare the precise crackle pattern with other card decks produced by other manufacturers from the period to see if any match.

I find virtually no factual basis for the alternative theory that claims Pam-C was the first printing, but stored for years until its eventual release after the (so claimed) second-printed Pam-A was sold out. Apart from other problems, the foundational assumption that the Sun Line was caused by a crack in the litho stone is faulty, as it defies the facts of actual lithography process. Cracked stones simply do not behave as described, and if it were a surface scratch it could easily have been fixed in a matter of minutes, and would certainly not necessitate a whole new printing.

Anyway, these are a few random thoughts I've had as a result of this most recent sale.

[Tarotwolf]

The letter was a big part of why I put such a high bid in. I like the fact that it's an actual physical piece of history attached to and illuminating one of the most popular tarot decks of the last century. The letter also supports the supposition that the blue roses & lilies backed deck is authentic and most probably from the very first print-run. For me that was reason enough to put a premium bid on this deck. I don't like the fact that the cardstock is separating, especially since I enjoy shuffling all my decks. However, I have theory why this may be happening. It'll take a bit of research to follow through with my speculations concerning the cardstock; but if it pans out, it may add something new to the early history of the Waite-Smith deck (I prefer not to go into detail at this point). Just to let everyone know - I'm not planning to restore the deck anytime soon. I did look into several restoration techniques prior to bidding on the deck and was concerned that even an archival adhesive might stain the thin paper once reattached to the cardstock layer. At a latter date I may have it professionally restored or may just keep it intact the way it is.
Thanks for everyone's interest. Once I get the deck and study it a bit, I'll follow up with more information.