Thoth - List of Editions.

Alobar

the most unusual version of this deck i have seen belonged to a friend.
it's been awhile since i've seen it, so i can't give you any box design, etc, but i will tell you it was the ugliest edition i have ever seen!
they were the standard (large) size, with the same Rosecrucian Cross reverse design, but the color separation was atrocious, and the colors themselves were quite muted. they were very nearly B&W, but with a heavy sepia-tone to them.

my friend said that he purchased them in Colorado around 1972-4, and that he has seen one other like it since then (in the 80's, a used deck i believe). however i have only seen the one deck, and i have been able to find out nothing more about it since.
 

Lillie

Rusty Neon said:
Thanks, Marion!

At our next Ottawa tarot club meeting, it should be fun to compare your Llewellyn USA deck with my Llewellyn Hong Kong deck.

And when you have could you post here to tell any differences between them?

Also Marion, would it be possible for you to post what is written on the side of your outer box, as a comparison to what Rusty Neon has posted regarding his?
It's a Lewellyn USA compared too Llewellyn Hong Kong thing.

The version that is almost black & white but with sepia tones must be one of the slip case ones, if it was out in the early 70's.
However, although the colours in mine are really terrible I wouldn't describe them quite like that. (Although I suppose it depends on how you see them, really)
My poor cards, I love them, but they are terrible!
 

Alta

Lillie said:
Also Marion, would it be possible for you to post what is written on the side of your outer box, as a comparison to what Rusty Neon has posted regarding his?
It says:

THOTH TAROT CARDS by Aleister Crowley
Published by LLewellyn Publications, St. Paul, Minn. 55165

Printed in U.S.A.
 

Lillie

Lord. I ain't never going to get all this figured out!

Thanks Marion. Exactly the same address for Llewellyn, as Rusty Neon's Hong Kong pack.

The exact wording of mine is;

Thoth Tarot Cards by Aleister Crowley
Distributed by Samuel Weiser, 734 Broadway, N.Y. 10003
Printed in USA

So, perhaps my deck version is by the 'pirate' in upstate New York mentioned in FyreFlye's quote. Thank you. It is very confusing, but I am sure that all information has got to be good, even if I can't make sense of it all.

Though I have no idea what is actually meant by 'upstate' and wether that would tie in with the NY address on the box.

Perhaps someone more knowledgable about these American technicalities could enlighten me.
 

Strange2

Alobar said:
the most unusual version of this deck i have seen belonged to a friend.
it's been awhile since i've seen it, so i can't give you any box design, etc, but i will tell you it was the ugliest edition i have ever seen!
they were the standard (large) size, with the same Rosecrucian Cross reverse design, but the color separation was atrocious, and the colors themselves were quite muted. they were very nearly B&W, but with a heavy sepia-tone to them.

my friend said that he purchased them in Colorado around 1972-4, and that he has seen one other like it since then (in the 80's, a used deck i believe). however i have only seen the one deck, and i have been able to find out nothing more about it since.

This may have been the first printed edition of the Thoth deck!

Here's info on the Thoth editions from "The Encyclopedia of Tarot, Volume III", by Stuart R. Kaplan:

"Crowley Book of Thoth Tarot, first edition. In the early 1960s, when this edition of the the Book of Thoth Tarot, by Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris, was printed, the Book of Thoth Tarot deck was available only as illustrations in Crowley's book, The Book of Thoth, which itself was difficult to attain at the time; it had been printed in a limited edition of 200, dated March 21, 1944, and was not available to the general public until 1969, when Samuel Weisrer reprinted it. The illustrations (for the first edition deck) were photographed from copy 105 of the limited edition (book) and printed in blue ink on the fronts and red ink on the backs. The deck is also known as the Sangreal One-Color Tarot. It was published by Simpson Printing Company (now Harp Printing Company) of Dallas, Texas. The edition consisted of about 250 decks, most of which were given away to friends and associates of the publisher."

"Crowley himself never saw publication of Lady Frieda Harris's tarot paintings as a deck. He did not have the finances to support the high quality realization desired by both himself and the artist. In 1969, another edition of the Crowley deck was issued, but the quality did not achieve the potential of the cards. In 1977, with the help of Gerald Yorke and Stephen Skinner, a new, full-color edition was issued jointly by U.S. Games Systems and Samuel Weiser, thirty years after Crowley's death."

So the "nearly B&W" deck you saw may be the Sangreal One-Color Tarot edition. Very rare, indeed!

The 1969 edition referred to above is likely the Llewellyn edition with the muted colors and blue lettering in the gold slip-case box, that some of us have noted.
 

Alta

Thanks strange2. That is very interesting!!
Apparently it has always been difficult to get published properly. :)
 

Cerulean

A suggestion for an edition list...

A timeline format might be the best to first organize it, as it seems sequentially there was a way to trace the development of the editions. However that's just a suggestion--this is a great thread for me to just peek at and absorb the information.

I don't know when editions went out of print, but I believe when I bought the green Thoth in 2004 with the 1970's imprint from U.S. Games, that was distributed as late as the 1990's.

Regards,

Cerulean
 

Lillie

So far I have , with the aid of the people on this thread, identified three editions that came in the box with the gold inner box. I cannot speak about the actual cards, but I believe they all had blank, pale blue borders, blue writing and the abscence of hebrew letters and astrological symbols. I also believe they were poor renditions of the art.

The differenes between the three boxes is entirely in the writing on the sides.
The three versions say;

THOTH TAROT CARDS by Aleister Crowley
Published by Llewellyn Publications, St. Paul, Minn. 55165, U.S.A.
Printed in Hong Kong

THOTH TAROT CARDS by Aleister Crowley
Published by LLewellyn Publications, St. Paul, Minn. 55165
Printed in U.S.A.

THOTH TAROT CARDS by Aleister Crowley
Distributed by Samuel Weiser, 734 Broadway, N.Y. 10003
Printed in USA

None of these editions bears dates or ISBN numbers.
I have no dates for any, though I believe they all predate the 77 US games edition, which I think was the first of the 'green' decks.
And I asume that the Hong Kong one was first published in 69.
If anyone knows any information about these three versions, I would love to know.
 

Alobar

so, do we know when ISBN's first appeared on these products?