Are you a tarot collector? Tell me why!

With 68 tarots and one each of the Mantegna, Grand Lenormand, Petit Lenormand, Sibilla della Zingara, and Kipperkarten, I'm definitely a collector. For me, it's a mixture of interest in the history and development of the tarot, and enjoyment of the artwork. It's extraordinary how many ways there are of expressing the images without loosing site of the basic idea.

My very first deck was the Sacred Rose, I bought the Thoth soonafter as well. Some time passed, and I got the Golden Klimt - just because it was there, in the store, and I liked it. I never used the Thoth or the Klimt, only the Sacred Rose for years and years on end.

Then, something cracked in me - when I purchased Haindl Tarot, I knew I was done - I was going to buy lots more decks. Soonafter, I was travelling in the North of Europe and bought some decks.

I collect because I love to collect, period. Why Tarot cards specifically? I love to flip through them, have them near, look at the imagery and study new things. Want to know about life in the circus? Zirkus Mägi! Want to learn about celtic culture? Druidcraft! Native American tribal culture? Vision Quest! Mythology? Apokalypsis! Wonderful study opportunities lie all around you. Plus, all decks I buy are very pretty to behold.

I started a long time ago, 30-some years I think, but only bought an average of a deck a year till I found AT. Since then I've definitely got more per year than that! And I also reawakened my old fascination with playing cards--in the last couple years I've accumulated over half as many such decks as my whole collection of Tarot! And of course now there's Lenormand and Kipper and on and on...

Why? Divination combined with artwork, mostly. Then certain themes will get to me. And then, even in a theme I'm not interested in, a deck will appear whose art floors me. Or in an art style I generally don't care for, a theme will grab me by the nose. So many variables! At first it was to find the "right" deck; it eventually became a way to acquire interesting art. And from there came the realization that different art sparks different parts of one's intuition. I'll never be a full-blown Tarot collector, but I will try to track down what I particularly like.

I have a collector's mentality anyway. Over the years I've collected a variety of things, though some of those collections are no more. But it doesn't surprise me that cards should be one of the keepers.