A 'Little' Tarot Family Secret

I was showing my Uncle who is 92 and spritely, my Tarot Cards on Christmas Day. He did a giggle and told me to look in the photo album for a photo taken in 1918 of him and my mother. My maternal Great Grandfather was a Mason and he owned a 'new fangled contraption" a camera!! Those cards are brown backed RWS- not playing cards!!! and belonged to him. Thank goodness for long term memory retention. I still have the wee table but not the cards Tut tut what a Catholic secret this is hehe. I will get this professionally enlarged and hang it on my wall, and when questioned about my passion I will wordlessly point to it. ~Rosanne

LOL, that is so cute, Rosanne! "It's in the blood... there's no escaping it!"

Rosanne ~

I am not quite 92 but I can't see a thing except your uncle and mother and the table. Probably your relatives have better sight than I, however. So undoubtedly second sight is in the family too!

I was wondering at children playing with the cards, and what that meant about the original concept of "playing" cards.

This has special meaning for me too, as yesterday I dicovered that one of my brothers and his wife-to-be are interested in the Tarot.

Blessings ~

Moongold

lol MoonGold, I had to take my Uncles word for the cards in his hand when he was about 4/5 yrs old. I always thought the photo was playing cards, so after his comment I asked him if he could tell me what they were and I showed him a Conver TdM, Russian Tarot of St Petersburg (sneaky eh!) My beat up Mantegna Tarot and the blue backed RWS. He had no trouble at all- he said he remembered the Chariot as he and his brother made one (cart) out of a packing case. So I believe he was not humouring me or shock horror- LYING to me- so RWS it is. But they just look like sepia cards to me ~Rosanne

Hi Rosanne ~

Have just had a qick nap and looked again at your picture. I can see your uncle holding cards now! And he would know.

Sometimes, in knick knack shops here I've seen old Tarot decks but at the time I simply was not interested. You rarely see these shops now in inner urban Melbourne (the rents are too high, I guess), but I wonder whether there are not many old decks sitting still in people's cupboards, forgotten and unimportant now.

Moongold

And that's a very sad thought, isn't it, Moongold? I know the odd one or two people who tell me they had a deck bought, and it's "In the drawer". When I ger excited and ask which deck it is, I get "Oh, I don't know, did a reading and forgot about it".

Mind you, the last one to say this it me is coming to my house in the new year for a cx reading, so some good came out of it!

Jan

Moongold said:

but I wonder whether there are not many old decks sitting still in people's cupboards, forgotten and unimportant now.

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I think this sometimes as well and always look through stuff at junk markets and boot fairs, just incase. One man's junk is another man's treasure. I bet there are some decks hiding away in cupboards which are gold-dust and probably set these boards on fire if they were to come out of their closets. Even though I have never come across one, the fun is in the looking as well. You never know. One day we might just come across one of them.

LB

Very cool Rosanne !! Did your uncle explain how he came to have them ? Or if he ever actually read with them? Or what happened to them ?

Sometimes I think it would be a fun experiment to "call" old decks and see what happens . In other words, spend a few minutes weekly concentrating on old decks just happening to find us somehow . Might be interesting to see what turns up . I got 2 Greenwoods that way . (Lest you think I am greedy and unprincipled , I let a friend buy the second one at the original price . )

Hehe DI, am am going to call some decks in now! No my Uncle did not know where his grandfather got the cards and I am puzzled by him having cards at all. I know he went to the first World War and I am presuming he got them when visiting lodges in England. I am on a mission now to find out! He was the commissioner of police here and took up his post again after the war. I do know he was in England in 1910 when George the V became King. What I don't know is when the brown backed RWS was printed. I have been looking at all the staged photos he took around 1918 to see any more clues.~Rosanne

Fascinating ... I'm having a hard time with the picture becuase it is so small, so I will try to blow it up for some detail.

What I am learning about 'old people' - meaning people over the age of 80 - is that some of them are a lot 'free-r' than we think of them as being. Perhaps it was World War 2 that changed so many people (My parents were children during the Great Depression). A lot of 'old' people are a lot more 'cool' about stuff we don't think they'd understand.

edited to add - I blew it up 200% - does it help?

You know what I would do, Rosanne? I would take that picture and have it blown up to 8" x 10". Then I would take the table, set it up with the wine bottle and glasses, and have another picture taken of You in your Uncle's place, also holding some cards. Then I would have the two pictures framed together with one matt.