I'm just going to be honest here. The desirability of a lot of decks depends in large part on the huge silly prices people tack onto them when they're out of print. Like the Emperor's New Clothes. Remember that fairy tale? Just because they're priced at a high price, people go nuts thinking they're something awesomely desirable.
I can't read with any of the MRP decks but the Victorian Romantic. That one came to me just at a time when my reading "muscle" was developed to the right spot where it really was an easy deck for me to read with. However, I don't like the size of the MRP decks at all and I definitely don't like the card stock on the Victorian Romantic because with a lot of use, it becomes limp and floppy and it's like trying to shuffle a stack of fabric. I'm told it's the same card stock that's always used in their decks, but none of the other ones I had got limp like that----only the VR and I have two of those. Both became limp.
Other decks that command big prices are Buckland Romani, Waking the Wild Spirit, and Ancestral Path When in print, none of these decks went over very well so they went out of print. Once out of print, though, the prices went up and everyone wants one now.
About the Buckland and Waking the Wild Spirit, though, I do have to say they're two of my most beloved decks. The Wild Spirit is uncanny in some of the ways it's spoken to me personally, so I use that one just for myself. And the Buckland is one of my main reading decks. I wasn't in the majority with using those two, though, when they were still in print. People would buy them and then put them up for trade shortly because they couldn't connect with them.
Like others have said, it's all a matter of taste. I think it's wise when considering whether or not you want a deck to ask yourself whether you want it because it's actually something you can read with and that clicks with you or whether you're just being hyped by whatever is the current rage with a big price.
Nobody is going to get rich from owning decks like MRP decks and others that sell for such high prices right now. The truly valuable ones are the really old ones or the handmade ones or the ones that there are only a handful of copies of still around. MRP and the other current decks were made in such numbers and so many people have them that they'll never in our lifetime----or probably any lifetime the next few hundred years---make anyone rich. The people who will profit measurably from them are the creators of the decks and those who can grab one hot off the press, so to speak and stick on eBay with an inflated price. Now the re-sellers will buy so many at once to re-sell, that a limited run of the new decks won't allow for everyone who wants one just for personal use to have one so I really don't pay any attention to what's out next anymore. Well, where MRP goes anyway.
Hmmmm, I didn't sleep very much last night. Maybe I'm just grumpy natured today.
My sincere advice is to be patient. Don't just climb on the bandwagon and spend your money for the hottest rage in new decks. Wait till you can see it for yourself (and preferably till you can actually have it in your hands to play with a little bit) before you put out your hard-earned money to have one of whatever it is.
Back to the Victorian Romantic. I thought it was silly when it first came out. I got one in a trade thinking it would be a good trade fodder for something else. When I got it in my hands, though, I was at just the right place in my Tarot studies that it triggered me in the right way so that I could read with it very well and I used it almost exclusively for a very long time. I don't think it was the deck that made it work well for me, I think it was more just where I was at the time in my Tarot journey.
So there goes that.
