The 1918 L. W. de Laurence Tarot & Book (pirated from Waite)

tuck1411

I am interested in speaking with anyone concerning the 1918 L. W. de Laurence tarot deck & book "The Illustrated Key to the Tarot: The Veil of Divination". They were published in 1918 by the de Laurence, Scott & Co. Publisers out of Chicago, IL. This deck and book were book-pirated directly from A. E. Waite, verbatim, without giving Waite any credit whatsoever. I am interested in finding out if anyone is familiar with these items, what the current worth of them are, and any history.

My name is Jody and I look forward to any discussions this thread might produce. Thank you.
 

rwcarter

Welcome again, tuck1411!

I have two hardbound copies of the pirated book and a copy of each of the colored variations of the deck. I believe the yellow variant fetches the most money as it's the most rare. I think I've only seen 2 or 3 copies on eBay in as many years. There is an edition of the book which uses the yellow variant for illustrations. (I honestly don't remember which variant illustrates the books I have.) I see auctions for the red or orange variants much more frequently.

I believe I paid between $50-$100 for each of my variants and I think I paid less than $50 for each of the books.

You can see Dates for the De Laurence Variants for more info.

What else would you like to know?

Rodney
 

rwcarter

Le Fanu said:
What I'd like to know rodney is if you can get me one for that price.
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Get you one what and for which price? :D

One of my de Laurence books is illustrated with the yellow variant and the other has B&W illustrations.
 

truelighth

When it concerns the DeLaurence Tarot decks, there are actually different versions. The versions that are mostly seen and sold, are the later ones. They have round corners and orange backs with a bit of a pattern. They come in those orange/brown boxes. There is a yellow, a orange and a red version of these. And I am not sure really about the dates for each one of those. I don't really agree with the theory of the yellow version being from 1960 and the others from 1980. I do believe they are from earlier dates, though not as early as 1918 for sure.

The 1918 DeLaurence deck is different. It is the yellow version, but it has square corners and the backs of the cards are white. It doesn't come in a box. They are quite rare to find.

The regular DeLaurence decks usually sell between $100 to $150 I think, or they used to. The 1918 version however, being almost as old or even older then the Pam-B and Pam-C, sells for over $400. And is rarely seen. I have one in my collection.

I don't know so much about the books. So far, I remember there has only been one copy known of the book with coloured pictures (yellow), that Holly Voley bought. But maybe others have shown up. I am not that knowledgable in the book area :).
 

The crowned one

It has come down in price, the later version, by a fair bit. the 1918 does not show up, so not sure about it.

I think a lot of people at one time thought the 1980 version was much older because of poor printing and retro looking box.
 

Zezina

I have a green hard-covered edition of the L.W. de Laurence book, 'The illustrated key to the Tarot', published by The de Laurence Company.

On the front cover is a circular serpent image with the words 'The key to the Tarot' inside the circle.

There is a black sticker on the title page for D.G. Nelson, occult bookseller in Chicago. It is possible that this black sticker may cover a date, but I'm not about to remove it to find out!

This copy belonged to a well-known local Tarot reader and was gifted to me some years ago by his friends, following his death.

There is no photo opposite the title page.

Copyright 1918 on the verso, and also, under the circumstances, the rather amusing special copyright notice prohibiting further reproduction.

The illustrations of each card of the RWS are shown in black, grey, white, yellow, and an olive green comprising the yellow and black.

Any relevant information would be welcome, thanks.
 

Kimber

truelighth said:
The 1918 DeLaurence deck is different. It is the yellow version, but it has square corners and the backs of the cards are white. It doesn't come in a box. They are quite rare to find. /QUOTE]

I have 2 copies of the Yellow white backed, square cornered version, and both are in boxes. They are completely plain, blank boxes, exactly like the ones for the red and orange variants, just plain.
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Pocket RWS Editions or Printings RWS Witch cards