What was the first deck you owned?

I was about thirty-one, and it was the Voyager. A friend owned it and I'd used it a little at their house. I finally bought it. I think it was 1987. My first four decks were acquired between then and around 1989.

1. Voyager
2. Thoth
3. Aquarian
4. Tarot of the Old Path

I didn't buy any more for several years, until 2003.

Nevada

Gilded (this past Christmas, I was 24). I'd never seen a deck that appealed to me before that one. Now I have several more . (Druidcraft, Osho Zen, Housewives.)

i was 8 years old and i recived the marseille tarot and my first book of tarot too.

A Tarot Kind of Life

In about 1976 my then husband gave me the Thoth deck for my birthday (25th) ... it had only been recently published. Two days later he tore it to shreds right before my eyes because we had picked up a couple of hitchikers who were heading to a spiritualist church. We decided to join them. I went into trance (scared me silly), my ex didn't, so he lost his temper and thus the end of the Thoth.

Six months or so later, I bought a Marseille deck ... I hadn't liked the Thoth anyway (and no that is not a rationalization LOL). I ... er ... borrowed ... er ... permantently, a couple of tarot books from my Dad's shelves (and later Kabbalah, Jung, Eliphas Levi and so on --- but drats, he's onto me these days LOL), and tried working with the Majors. I was too lazy to learn the pip cards.

Skip forward a couple of decades during which I messed with the cards, but was primarily involved in getting a couple of degrees, working, and bringing up my now 30 year old intellectually disabled son, on my own mostly, and re-marrying and divorcing twice (So I'm a slow learner LOL).

Then I got either the Morgan Greer or the Mythic first ... both around the same time. Was partially hooked, not so much with giving readings to others, but with using it for my own inner work... but on my way.

About 10 years ago I finally bought an RWS, but still played, but with more intention and seriousness. I then found a good course (on-line) about 5 years ago, and the rest, as they say, is history. I rarely read for anyone else... not the point for me, somehow. Besides, I spent years being a social worker and psychologist and then alternative healer, and I have passed the point of wanting to be a 'helper'.

I ran away from home ... at the ripe old age of 47 or 48, and spent 6 months back-packing through India with deck in hand, having ... er ... run away from home a few times before to visit other Asian destinations LOL). I kind of made it up as I went along ... good times! I then got deathly ill .... spent a few weeks on life support, and a couple of months in hospital, and was left with permanent chronic health problems.

So, in order to find a creative and fulfilling life that I could lead within the context of my health restrictions (Saturn in Virgo 12th house), I turned to tarot, painting and reading all those books that I hadn't had time to read before (even though I had always read heaps).

These days I'm more interested in reading about the history, the symbolism, the artwork of tarot... exploring those through the cards, through painting, through reading history, and my way through all of Jung, and anything else that pops up ... like alchemy, and magic and qabalah, through art and architecture, so on.

I'm kind of painting a deck .... but it is slow and I am not yet committed to the process.

I'm just a beginner really. But I figure I've got about 30 years left this time around, so it means that, in preparation for my next life, I will have nicely scratched the surface,
mythos

My first was an RWS in the sixties when I was a teenager. It was all I could find. But I didn't fancy it. The illustrated pips felt like a test: I had to guess what was going on in the picture, a thing I wasn't good at. And, anyway, I wanted the older type cards, like the ones I saw pictured in the books on occult topics.

Those were Marseille cards, a term I didn't know at the time. And usually it would be an even numbered sword card, or the 9 of batons, so I didn't even know what card I was looking at!

I did finally find a 1jj Swiss, which I bought, and gave away my RWS. I kept the second deck -- still have it today. But didn't do anything with it, much. Then when I started studying Tarot last year, I got a righteous Marseilles deck. And another, and another, and you know how it goes.
-shaveling

My first deck was a Thoth. I had taken an English Lit course where the professor brought in a tarot deck (I think it was a TdM of some variety) to look at in conjunction with studying the symbolism in Eliot's The Waste Land, and had been doing some reading in Jung as well. I went to Taos, New Mexico on vacation a few weeks later, found an occult bookstore (not too common a thing in the early 1980s in the part of Texas where I lived), and bought the deck recommended to me by the clerk. I was 21.

--bassetized

Rider-Waite has followed me on and off in my life and even when I become a christian and then a born again witch.............

I bought my first deck when I was in my thirties. It was the Universal Waite. Soon after, I bought the Robin Wood and many others followed. Finally, starting about a year ago, I sold all of them because they were just sitting around collecting dust. Now I only have the Gilded which I absolutely love!

When I was 14 (I'm 24 now) I bought the Aquarian from a game store in the local mall. It was missing the Ace of Swords and for a year I made do by using the title card to replace it. I have no idea what became of it or my second deck (a small Thoth) though I do remember wondering if it really was necessary to have a second tarot deck... ah how times change.

Um... it was one of those pocket books with a mini deck! I don't think the thing reached an inch in any direction. I still have it around here somewhere I didnt' start reading with cards until I got my Hanson-Roberts