Cerulean
Excerpt from Frank Jensen's book with much credit to Holly's website/material
P. 162-164, Story of the Waite-Smith Tarot, Frank Jensen (Part IV: Early Waite Smith Remakes: The Story Goes On)
Notes/Highlights from the section "de Laurence"
- 1918 book is first plagiarism with PCS line art.
"The first plagiarism appeared as early as 1918 where a book published by The de Laurence Company in Chicago in USA was named The Illustrated Key to the Tarot..."
"The illustrations were the line art of Pamela Colman Smith and so was the artwork for the deck that the L.W. de Laurence's publishing company also offered for sale at the same time. The book was reprinted many times over the years, all of them still stating a publication date of 1918 and with no reference to the specific print run. In at least one early edition of the book the illustrations had a yellow effect colour added, otherwise they were rendered in greyscale. the book covers of the different print runs vary in colour and so does the paper's quality."
"The accompanying decks of cards were chaeply produced in duochrome, using only black ink and one effect colour. Three different versions are known with the colours yellow, orange and red added respectively. On the box of the yellow deck the address is given as 79 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago 1, Illinois. One early edition of the yellow deck, most likely the very first, has (s)quare corners, and no back pattern. The later yellow packs have rounded corners and orange back pattern with white dots.
"The orange deck has the address as 180 North Wabash Avenue, Chicago 1, while the red deck has the same street address, but with the postal number (zip-code) 60601 added. Since zip-codes were first introduced in 1963, this version of the deck is inevitably not from before this date.
"The title page of all the editions contains a list of an imposing number of other books, all written by Mr. de Laurence. One can wonder if he actually wrote any of them himself..."
That's all that is pertinent to the query of the datings, deck and book--it does not note whether cards and boxes were different editions. In any case, I hope this assists.
If anyone has the rare yellow deck with '(s)quare corners and no back pattern....tis vintage indeed!
Cerulean
P.S. I'm going to include at some point a link to another thread, so we do not get sidetracked...but De Laurence and assorted finds about this...very different personality...deserves it's own threads. The findings about the deck itself are too interesting and unique right now as we share what we remember and find out about the deck and things related to its printings!
Anyone with a related De Laurence book or catalog might find a cross-reference, or advertisement of the actual decks...as I am finding this vendor was not shy at all about pressing forward his assorted and associated wares at any opportunity.
P. 162-164, Story of the Waite-Smith Tarot, Frank Jensen (Part IV: Early Waite Smith Remakes: The Story Goes On)
Notes/Highlights from the section "de Laurence"
- 1918 book is first plagiarism with PCS line art.
"The first plagiarism appeared as early as 1918 where a book published by The de Laurence Company in Chicago in USA was named The Illustrated Key to the Tarot..."
"The illustrations were the line art of Pamela Colman Smith and so was the artwork for the deck that the L.W. de Laurence's publishing company also offered for sale at the same time. The book was reprinted many times over the years, all of them still stating a publication date of 1918 and with no reference to the specific print run. In at least one early edition of the book the illustrations had a yellow effect colour added, otherwise they were rendered in greyscale. the book covers of the different print runs vary in colour and so does the paper's quality."
"The accompanying decks of cards were chaeply produced in duochrome, using only black ink and one effect colour. Three different versions are known with the colours yellow, orange and red added respectively. On the box of the yellow deck the address is given as 79 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago 1, Illinois. One early edition of the yellow deck, most likely the very first, has (s)quare corners, and no back pattern. The later yellow packs have rounded corners and orange back pattern with white dots.
"The orange deck has the address as 180 North Wabash Avenue, Chicago 1, while the red deck has the same street address, but with the postal number (zip-code) 60601 added. Since zip-codes were first introduced in 1963, this version of the deck is inevitably not from before this date.
"The title page of all the editions contains a list of an imposing number of other books, all written by Mr. de Laurence. One can wonder if he actually wrote any of them himself..."
That's all that is pertinent to the query of the datings, deck and book--it does not note whether cards and boxes were different editions. In any case, I hope this assists.
If anyone has the rare yellow deck with '(s)quare corners and no back pattern....tis vintage indeed!
Cerulean
P.S. I'm going to include at some point a link to another thread, so we do not get sidetracked...but De Laurence and assorted finds about this...very different personality...deserves it's own threads. The findings about the deck itself are too interesting and unique right now as we share what we remember and find out about the deck and things related to its printings!
Anyone with a related De Laurence book or catalog might find a cross-reference, or advertisement of the actual decks...as I am finding this vendor was not shy at all about pressing forward his assorted and associated wares at any opportunity.
However, I think that the printing dates of these decks is still much earlier--probably more like the '30s to the '60s for the orange variant and the '60s to '70s for the red. 
