Best Bargains

tarot heart said:

I just received a Mythic Tarot with artwork by Tricia Newell for 10 bucks including shipping. The deck is in perfect condition and so is the book and cloth that came with it. This is one of my favorite decks ever. I already have the one with the yellow box and now I have the dark blue box. I like them both and may trim one. I'm happy.

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oh, this is a great price for sure!! The older ones sell for anywhere between $30 and up over $100. Is the book a hardback or soft? I think the really old first edition one's were hardback. I don't have the new one.. I bought the original back in the 80's but tossed it at some point over the years...then was lucky enough to replace it. It's a fun deck, especially if you love Greek mythology.

Cocobird55 said:

Today I received my copy of the Ukiyoe from a seller on Alibris. It was listed at $4.95, and I had a $1 coupon. Total price was $8.06. The box is in bad shape, but the deck itself is in excellent condition. I have already ordered a Baba bag to keep it in.

This deck is lovely, and I've read that the LWB is also pretty good. I'm looking forward to learning more.

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AHHHHH!!! OMG, what a steal this was!!! I LOVE this deck. Never use it to read, but just love looking at it. I paid $45 or $50 for mine, and I thought THAT was a steal....
It's on ebay right now for $95, and I have seen if for even higher.

Fortunate people

I'm sure I've had happy stumbles onto bargains of sorts, I'm sure, but in the back of my awareness, just back there... I can feel it, sitting, waiting... there is a bargain the likes of which one can only dream of just waiting for me to stumble upon it... When I do, I'll be sure to post here In the meantime, happy happy bargains to you all.

I found one of those old Whitman Gypsy Fortune Telling decks for $10, just arrived yesterday - box a little smooshed but cards like new. Mine came in the red and goldish box with black and red lettering - I've also seen blue boxes online. I love the old fashioned artwork of this little deck, it really is cute. Copyrite is 1940, though I am sure they were in print for some time after that....I think $10 was a good buy, and there are still plenty around at such low prices, but I am increasingly seeing this deck go for higher and higher, $40-ish on ebay, up to around $80 or $90 - I think in the $80 range on Amazon right now.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23965366@N06/3681863863/in/photostream/

Frown Strong

If I'd known this thread existed, I'd have posted here instead of http://bit.ly/luckybuys there. A couple of weeks ago I picked up a first edition Tarot of Frown Strong for 75p in a charity shop in Chipping Sodbury (South Gloucestershire).

Like most of the decks mentioned here(!) this was one I had never heard of – I bought because of the price, obviously. The cards are perfect though the box shows its age. When I looked through them they felt strong to me, but when I googled I was a little taken aback...

I never got to congratulate Rodney on his tremendous collectors' achievement. I believe I probably speak for many people when I say this deal of the decade couldn't have happened to a nicer tarotist. Well done.

I can't say I've ever had a good tarot bargain. Anything now-sought after that I bought as a first edition was obviously still in print when I bought it, so all those don't count.

I suppose my Herbal Tarot and Sacred Rose tarot, while presumably still in print at the time (and now), were good buys at around $5 each on the Borders bargain table circa the year 2000.

That same year, I also bought a Tarocchi di Alan in Dublin for some gratifyingly low price--like 7 Irish pounds or something at a time when the exchange rate favored Americans. I think it might have been hard to find by then, though not necessarily sought-after (although a rabid collector then, I was not plugged into any formal online collecting communities, so I wouldn't have known such things. And I didn't use Ebay, if it even existed then).

Yes, I'm really digging the bottom of the barrel, here, folks. Such are my paltry "bargains." I question whether true steals are even possible nowadays with all the Ebayers and Amazon Marketplacers and others hiking up their prices to the heavens.

Then I hear about stories like Rodney's...

I suppose to those of us who hang around here a lot, it seems unthinkable that a person--like Rodney's oblivious seller, presumably-- who gets a taste of tarot would not then be sucked more deeply into the wonderful world of decks and collecting. But it must happen. After all, the several people I've met in the offline tarot world who chug along for years with the same one or two decks and never think to go online to research more about tarot history or lore or meanings or DECKS...those types of people exist.

I've met them, so I need to remind myself that they exist and that they often decide to get rid of the small box of old decks they haven't paid any mind to for fifteen years....

We can only hope.

Well I got a Minotarot for 51 euros. That was a really good deal.

daphne said:

Is there a difference in those two editions, like cardstock, printing quality?

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Yes! Well, at least for the two I have. The one in the yellow box has much better cardstock, I think than the earlier dark blue/purplish box edition. Also, the yellow box has a card back which allows you to use reversable cards. The dark blue box edition had backs with a chalice in the middle and other tarot related symbols, thus not allowing reversed cards, unless you pick with your eyes closed of course!

They're both great decks though.

I am eyeing the newer version out right now call the New Mythic tarot which has a different artist altogether but still lovely.

Thanks for asking!

rwcarter said:

I believe that I just got the best bargain, if not of all time, then at the very least that I'll ever get! For $44 including shipping as a Buy It Now auction on eBay, I received 5 sets, all either Thorson's or Aquarian editions and all opened:

• Beasts of Albion with sealed cards
• Merlin Tarot
• Celtic Tarot (Davis)
• Alchemical Tarot, 1st edition with sealed cards
• Greenwood Tarot with cards that look like they've never been used!

OMG doesn't even come close!!!!! That comes to $8.80 per set, so I got a brand new Greenwood for $8.80!!!!! The auction was up for an hour and 4 minutes when I saw it and jumped on it. I dared not believe that someone was offering a complete Greenwood set along with 4 other sets for such a low price, but I figured I'd take a gamble for $25. And I'm oh so glad I did! The seller didn't list the names of the decks either in the auction title or body, so I could only go on the one picture he posted and this text
The item condition was listed as used. Yeah, the outer boxes definitely have shelf wear, but the contents are all in superb condition! Definitely a case of underselling. I don't even care that I owed $9 in postage in order to get the package. (The price I originally paid was $35.)

I needed this boost today after a rather rough weekend!

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It's when I hear about things like this, that I start to believe the world is not a random place, but instead is an orderly and fair one. The universe is aware of you, and is sending back just a tiny bit of what you so generously send out all the time. Enjoy!

rwcarter said:

I believe that I just got the best bargain,

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Are you saying *your* best or *the* best? I don't know what the Greenwood should have cost, but Frown Strong should have been £80+ so my 75p is about 0.9% I'm not being competitive, just I don't think anyone noticed me butting into this conversation of knowledgeable collectors, me the raw ignoramus lol.