Which Rider-Waite?

I admit that when I bought the Giant RW I thought it was going to be the full card. Imagine my disappointment when I saw the obviously cropped cards. It is the only RWS I own currently other than the clones.

I'll be on the lookout for the version you all prefer...

wytchwood said:

I have an old Rider (printed by AGM) with the two part box and the World on the top, but it has a tiny Copyright mark on the bottom right of each card. Is this another one?

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Is your box purple or blue? If it is purple, it's one that was made around 1990, I believe. It's a more recent one. If it's blue and the cards have copyrights I would be very surprised.

Scion said:

..... the Albano will also seem primitive, although it has a funky logic of its own.

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Please note that the USG Albano is horribly distorted and is a Very Bad Boy. I haev the original (a VERY lucky win on e-bay) and the difference is startling. The Sun in the USG one isn't even round.... NOT one to buy, honestly. It is a travesty.

ZenMusic said:

If you can't see the box (on ebay) how would I recognize this deck from the description or pictures ? Is it USG? out of print?

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It's long been out of print. It's published by Rider & Co. Without seeing it, you would have to get a verbal description of the box or LWB. There's no way to know for sure just by looking at the cards.The LWB has a picture of The World dancer on the cover and below that it has Rider's address: Rider & Company, 3 Fitzroy Square, London W.1.

gregory said:

a travesty.

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A travesty! My thoughts exactly.

Abrac said:

Is your box purple or blue? If it is purple, it's one that was made around 1990, I believe. It's a more recent one. If it's blue and the cards have copyrights I would be very surprised.

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Yes it is blue. It's the two part blue box with the World card pictured on the top.
I'm intrigued now! the backs are blue diagonal check pattern.

Zoe

edited to add: it's definitely older than 1990 as I got it off my husband who has had it ages and ages.

wytchwood, is it a US Games copyright: © 1971 US Games?

I had never heard of, nor seen, a blue box Rider having copyrights, then a couple of days ago I saw one on eBay that also had copyrights. I don't know, very unusual. This might be yet another chapter in the ongoing saga that is the RWS Tarot.

I found an old post which should clarify things. In it, Fulgour states: "But at around 1975 USGames manages to have their copyright printed on a second generation of the cards. These are still packed in a blue box by Rider but now we see changes to the yellow box. Weiser is out of it."

So apparently there are some blue box Riders that have copyrights after all. He goes on to say: "1982 USGames makes the 1971 copyright "legal" and Rider is absorbed by Random House. A strange Rider edition comes out in a purple box. The blue box is out."

It must have been in 1982, when US Games registered their copyright, that they started putting copyright notices on the yellow box version, and the blue box was phased out.

The entire thread is here.

Abrac thanks for that.

I used to have a copy of the purple box edition that you speak of but gifted it to a friend
It's a lovely edition and as far as I could see the lamination and colouring was exactly the same as in my blue box Rider edition. The only difference that I could see was the small copyright mark in the border of the purple box edition.

If you don't mind the copyright mark then I would recommed the purple box edition very highly - it's lovely.
The purple box has a picture of The Fool card on the lid if I remember rightly.

Sulis said:

The purple box has a picture of The Fool card on the lid if I remember rightly.

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Yes, it has The Fool and The World. That's what was making me think wytchwood's might have been the purple box. I agree it is a really nice deck and would have no problem at all recommending it.