Tarot of the Origins

rwcarter said:

Does the box say Fabbri-Orbis on it? If so, they licensed a number of decks from LoS (or they were printed in conjunction with LoS - LeFanu would know better) and made slight changes to the card dimensions if memory serves.

Rodney

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The box only says Lo Scarabeo on it.. There is no barcode on the box or an accompanying lwb. According to the title card, the deck was printed in 2007.. I do think I like to blue toned backs of these ones a bit more for some reason. Maybe because I wasn't expecting them?

aquestionmark said:

The box only says Lo Scarabeo on it.. There is no barcode on the box or an accompanying lwb. According to the title card, the deck was printed in 2007.. I do think I like to blue toned backs of these ones a bit more for some reason. Maybe because I wasn't expecting them?

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So are you basing your comment about it not being a true LoS edition on the fact that the backs are a different color? Your box looks French and not at all how I remember my box looking. But the title card looks legit.

Rodney

I definitely cannot say for sure if it is a true lo scarabeo edition or not, my guess is as good as anyone else :/ To me, the titles had a different placement than any other lo scarabeo decks I've seen.. I've been trying to see if I can find when the deck went out of print but I'm not sure.

rwcarter said:

Does the box say Fabbri-Orbis on it? If so, they licensed a number of decks from LoS (or they were printed in conjunction with LoS - LeFanu would know better) and made slight changes to the card dimensions if memory serves.

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Thanks for the vote of confidence But of those LoS/Fabbri/Orbis editions which came with the History of Tarot series (circa 2001), The Tarot of the Origins was not one of the issued decks. It was only issued as a reduced Oracle

This deck was one of LoS' first editions and I think they started publishing in about 1987 so there are quite a few permutations you can get. I think the blue backed one you have is just a French edition - I'm 99% sure it's legitimate. I know I haven't seen it up close but I don't think there's a history of bootlegged LoS decks - you'd fake something like the Gilded or baba if you wanted to go into tarot piracy. And there are always different editions of LoS decks anyway - French versions, Dutch versions, German versions etc etc . The graphics of the titles (and order of the languages) are different to the more recent one. I think this deck went out of print a bit before Riccardo started this thread in 2002 - I think he was sort of mourning its passing. Maybe late 90s?

Funny - the growing popularity of this deck really has convinced me that a deck has to go OOP to be truly desirable. It amuses me this need to have decks once they become difficult to find. Scarcity can suddenly make an overlooked deck extraordinarily readable. The human mind is a funny thing.

I noticed that many of the Origins images have similarities with Toppi's other deck, the Tarocchi Universali. Origin's Moon lady with her toothy smile and blazing eyes is the spitting image of Universali's Star lady. And the Fool looks like he just swapped his hat for an egg.

I think this deck was conceived as an art project rather than a working Tarot deck. I remember there was an exhibition catalogue of Toppi's art and Origins was among it. The LWB and images in the Minors don't line up with RWS much at all unless you really write between the lines yourself. It feels like Toppi chose to go his own way rather than what familiar Tarot marketers usually have in mind, and that's what we were given.

I had this deck and eventually sold it, but I would love to see a reprint someday.

I think some decks need time to find their audiences and this one just ran out of time.

**no longer relevant