How long does it take to wear out a tarot deck?

tarotbear

So - why do you want to wear out your Tarot deck? :confused:
 

feynrir

So - why do you want to wear out your Tarot deck? :confused:
I wouldn't say I "want" to, but I would welcome it happening! I simply like the way a worn or semi-worn deck feels. It's cozy.
 

Plenilune

My medieval scapini deck is a bit worn around the edges, but that deck is 8+ years old and I used when I did reading professionally, so it was shuffled many times. Now, I don't really read professionally anymore, so my decks are still pretty pristine.
 

nisaba

I wouldn't say I "want" to, but I would welcome it happening! I simply like the way a worn or semi-worn deck feels. It's cozy.

They also give you greater cred with a certain kind of client, the kind who think years-of-experience are important.
 

Ace

They also give you greater cred with a certain kind of client, the kind who think years-of-experience are important.

Which is, I think, very silly but I hear it too. I replace my decks, if I can get more, every 6 months or so. They get tired and grotty and just flaccid, somehow. Others I have met will use a deck so long you can't see the graphics and here were holes worn in them, but his is THE deck they use! I don't get it, but some get superstitious about their decks.

But people will comment and look askance at me because I have a new copy. And I must explain, I am an OLD reader just with a new deck.

barb
 

Darkmage

^I'm actually not a fan of readers with beaten-up decks. My thought is are they that down on their luck that they can't afford $15-20 to pick up a new mass market deck? I don't want to feel like I'm buying their reading out of charity--unless it's for charity, but that's a different story.

My rare decks stay home. My mass market decks get used for public reading. If I lose my USG RWS, no big deal. If my purse gets tossed again like it did when someone stole my wallet a while back (fortunately they just took cash and left my credit cards and ID alone) and I lose my pocket RWS, no biggie. I can just buy a new copy.
 

Morwenna

It's not the years, it's the mileage. :)

My decks will probably last forever, because I don't use them that much. The boxes wear out faster than the cards. The boxes for two of my decks have disintegrated, and a couple others are fading fast. But the cards are great.

Do I like the looks/feel of worn decks? Not enough to force the issue! A deck is what it is: new, old, somewhere in between. If I like it for itself, that's enough.
 

MandMaud

I wouldn't say I "want" to, but I would welcome it happening! I simply like the way a worn or semi-worn deck feels. It's cozy.
Ah! I thought you mean worn out to the point of unusable, falling apart. :lightbulb: But you mean worn, not squeaky brand new. The reason they pre-wash jeans.

They also give you greater cred with a certain kind of client, the kind who think years-of-experience are important.
Which is, I think, very silly
...But people will comment and look askance at me because I have a new copy.
^I'm actually not a fan of readers with beaten-up decks. My thought is are they that down on their luck that they can't afford $15-20 to pick up a new mass market deck?
Before I starting learning tarot, I didn't know there WERE mass market decks. I thought there was "the tarot", as in THE tarot, not varieties of it.

A friend who does know something about it assumed that the Hanged Man is the Hanged Man is the Hanged Man, before I told her the H.Man in the Blue Moon Tarot is an embryo within an ear of wheat so heavy that it's nodding; she knew quite a lot but didn't know there's all that art out there, and it was a whole new concept for her.

And another friend, when I started learning, said she'd been interested all her life but hadn't known that just anyone could learn it, so seeing me made her think for the first time that she might have a go.

My point is that it's unfair to despise people who think that if it isn't traditional / psychic / inherited / Romany / magical / ancient, then it isn't the real McCoy.

(In fact I was online-obsessing for months before I realised Thoth and RWS are different in more than just the pictures - I was joining in threads about the Prince, not knowing he was equivalent to the King. More than a year before I found out Lenormand isn't just another publishing house doing the same 78-card decks.)
 

ravenest

They also give you greater cred with a certain kind of client, the kind who think years-of-experience are important.

really ? Thats great news ... does it apply to me as the reader as well ? I look really worn out and used ... and cosy (like a collapsed old bean bag ) :)

... finally, I get some cred !
 

MandMaud

really ? Thats great news ... does it apply to me as the reader as well ? I look really worn out and used ... and cosy (like a collapsed old bean bag ) :)

... finally, I get some cred !

Nah, it doesn't count without the dangly earrings and headscarf, sorry.

<hunting for a greater range of smileys, knowing :wryeyebrowraise: must be somewhere in the list>