When do you retire a deck?

SunChariot

MaryHeather said:
So, I'm sitting here looking at my ancient Hanson-Roberts deck, and wondering if it's time to retire it and get a new one.

It's not like any of the cards are creased (except for maybe The Lovers, and you have to look for the crease to see it). All the cards are still there, but if you hold the cards up to the light, you can see the spots where the laminate is just about worn away. There is also that faint stain of some mystery substance on the border of The Fool. Not to mention they're so warped, their profile looks like a lemniscate- not even two weeks under a brick fixed that. And oh yeah, the edges are dark gray. Edge treatment courtesy of 10,000 shuffles.

In spite of all this, I can't seem to bring myself to replace this deck. It has become the equivalent of that beat up t-shirt that you love, yet are embarrassed to wear in public.

When do you retire a deck? What do you do with it? Or, do you keep a deck in "rotation" until it literally falls apart?

To me, like anything else in Tarot, when my intuition tells me it would be time to then I would.

If the imperfections feel good to me, like marks of the deck being loved I would keep it. If they felt like the deck was just damaged that would make it harder to use for me and I would retire it. It's not so much the imperfections as the feelings they bring out in you. Positive feelings make for good readings in my experinece, negative ones not so much. It's not. I think, so much a question of what the deck looks like but of how the way it looks makes you feel.

That said, I have never yet had to retire a deck in over a decade of reading. None have yet reached the level of damage you are talking about.Although all my decks curl up a bit. But then I have abtou 117 decks and use them all. So no one deck gets used a lot...

Babs

Cocobird55

I retired mine, for the same reason. I used the Russian one for a while, until the reprint came out. I bought two of them -- can't be without this deck.

Grizabella said:
I've retired my Victorian Romantic Gold. It didn't hold up well and got so it was so floppy it wouldn't shuffle easily. My daughter wanted it for sentimental reasons and took it home with her one day. That's perfectly fine with me because I know it's safe with her.

It would be neat if you could find a glass top for a table you use and put the cards all under the glass. That would make them safe but still enjoyable to look at and savor the memories.

Morwenna

The only deck I ever retired was the one from which a card was lost. I don't use any of them often enough for wear to be an issue.

swedishfish612

Apollonia said:
Another deck I recall retiring because after many years of shuffling, it began to smell like feet.

lol..."smells like feet" is a good indicator for deck retirement, I think!

When do you retire a deck?

SunChariot

Cocobird55

Morwenna

swedishfish612