What Thoth deck to buy?

I have been browsing Amazon, looking to buy the Thoth tarot. However there are various versions available. One is by Weiser Books, the other is from U.S. Games Systems.
Are they of similar quality, or do you indeed get what you pay for even though the difference is only four dollars? Is there one most favoured by the Aeclectic Tarot community?

Looking forward to your help and input,

StoneMan.

Hi Stoneman,

I have the greenbox Weiser edition ISBN 0-87728-452-0 - the colours are very bright and the details on the cards crisp but saying that the new US Games version of the Thoth is supposed to be very vivid. Both these decks are the very large size with only one Magus card and the Unicursal Hexagram card.

I like my large Size Thoth, but I also have the pocket and the standard. The standard is the one in the lavender box with three Magus cards to chose from. Hope this helps.

2 3/4 x 4 3/8

The regular deck, as I call it, comes with 3 Magus cards.
Interestingly, one of them is more like the rest of the Majors.
The symbols for the Hebrew letter and astological glyph are
printed Letter Left and Glyph Right on all but two cards,
The Moon and The Universe. Of the 3 Magus cards, only one
matches the letter left, glyph right pattern. Meaning, unknown.

There are also the indispensable Decanates on the Pips:

http://www.skyscript.co.uk/heritage/egyptians2.html

The Egyptian division of the year into 36 ten-day periods,
each presided over by a particular stellar deity, gave birth
to the astrological system of rulership known as decanates.

Cardinal signs: 2 3 4
Fixed signs: 5 6 7
Mutable signs: 8 9 10

I hope this chart will clear up everyone's problems:

US GAMES-

Large Green Box: Icky green color, Large Size Cards, Unicursal Hexagram, One Magus.

Lavender Box: Standard Size Cards, Vivid Colors with Grey border, Three Magus'.

SWISS CARDS (AGMULLER)-

Any cards by AG Muller will not have the Green color. These come in a Dark, Rich Royal Blue Box.

And, I remember a big White Box, that has one Magus, Big Cards, Vivid Color, Grey Borders.


-*-SO-*-

If you DO NOT want icky green cards, buy the smaller US Games or the AGMuller cards.

If you DO WANT the icky green cards, go with the large US Games version.

TaranRavenfrost said:

If you DO NOT want icky green cards, buy the smaller US Games or the AGMuller cards.

If you DO WANT the icky green cards, go with the large US Games version.

Click to expand...

To add to the confusion, new packages (as of sometime this year) of the large U.S. Games version now contain the AG Muller cards rather than the icky green cards. To see if it's old stock (icky green cards) versus new stock (with the AG Muller cards), you have to take the cellophane bundle out of the box (not opening up the cellophane) and look at the top card to see which it is. If you're not sure, then, while at the store, compare that top card with the top card from the smaller US Games deck in the lavender box whose cards aren't icky green. It's a lottery as far as buying the large US Games deck online, as it may be the 'old 'stock.

It's less risk to buy the AG Muller cards in the large blue box, but unfortunately it's not seen too often these days in North American stores.

I would say that a safe bet would be to go with the small US Games version in the Small Box, or the AG Muller cards. I know that Amazon does not stock the small lavender box, so you will have to order from www.books.com or from your local bookstore.

If you can, it's better to get the large AG Muller cards (AG Muller blue box or 'new-stock' US Games green box, if you can ensure it's new-stock) instead of the smaller cards (US Games lavender box). There is a lot of detail in the artwork, and it's amazing what difference the size makes to see all those details. I had the lavender but always longed to get the larger AG Muller cards, and so I did, with the advent of the new-stock US Games green box.

No matter how much it seems like it, I am NOT fighting with you RustyNeon! But, it sometimes depends on the persons hand size as well. You might consider purchasing a Larger deck for study, and a smaller deck for reading. This is what I might do eventually.

What a coincidence. I was in the shower and was coming back to this thread precisely to edit my post to mention the handsize and study deck/reading deck questions.

The lavender deck's cards are better size for multi-card layouts and easier for mixing/shuffling and made of sturdier cardstock, but as a study and reference deck the larger size is second to none. If one wants to do layouts with a very large number of cards (e.g., The Opening of the Key method from the Golden Dawn and mentioned by Crowley in _Book of Thoth_), the new mini size of cards could be a good choice as well.

Rusty Neon,

The large cards you mention the new version green US Games box with AG Muller cards inside - is this the Weiser publishers?

I have the new green box, the cards are as vivid as the standard lavender box Thoth but the cards have AG Muller on the backside and the LWB is published by US Games. These cards are at least £10 pounds cheaper than the blue box AG Muller version but the colours are so bright and clear. I'm not sure which version deck I have.

But I do have a green tinted white boxed large Thoth so I can compare them.