Decks You Wish You Hadn't Bought?

AJ said:

I have a list of 90 decks I've sold/traded/gifted. I'm sure every single one of them have been on a "mad about it" thread at one time or the other.

Do I wish I had my money back? Yes, but only in order to buy something else

Tarot decks are really something you have to Use before you know if they sing to you. Some are simply off key and some are just appalling. But if you don't try them you will never know what that really special top twenty, never getting rid of, use often decks are. People pay Way more for formal education they never use at all...we at least use what we've learned for future buying.

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I agree with your philosophy. I'm glad I've bought all the decks I've bought, and I'm glad I got rid of the ones I didn't like. I don't think I'll ever have 20 decks that I 'use often', though! Maybe a top 5 for me.

Emily said:

The Fenestra was a big disappointment for me, the scans look lovely but when I got the deck it was covered by the then new style of thick and smelly laminate. The cards were like glossy pieces of sticky plastic. And the artwork wasn't as attractive in the hand. I kept the deck hoping I would eventually warm to it.
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I was thinking about Fenestra but thankfully didn't buy it. I was so put off by US Games decks before. I don't know if I'm weird or too demanding but they put the numbers, serials of some kind on the cards, and sometimes on the backs which makes them non reversible.
I like the artwork on some of their decks and it's such a shame.

Carla said:

I know this is a place for saying decks we wish we hadn't bought, but I want to make a little holler for the Osho Zen. It has a 5-star rating here and was my first tarot deck. I use it when I want to have some introspection. I find it a centering deck, as it ceaselessly reminds me to trust the here and now rather than the vain imaginings about past and future of the 'monkey mind'. Just sayin'.

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Hi Carla, you are not alone. I also like the Osho Zen. The first reading I ever did with the deck was an online reading in a forum for a sceptical fella who didn't have much time for tarot but allowed me to read for him cos he was too polite to say no thanks. A year or so later I found a post from the same person in question and was pleased to find he had purchased his own Osho Zen and actually did a reading for another person with it. I felt the deck had helped to inspire one more initiate into the joys of tarot and it was kind of nice to think that if my reading had helped that one person and had sparked an interest which may have led him to help another person, that was the kind of chain reaction I was happy to be a part of.

As for regret decks - the Sacred Circle and the Quest. They had both been expunged from my history until this thread dragged up the mouldy old bones of my past.

Blue Fury said:

Hi Carla, you are not alone. I also like the Osho Zen. The first reading I ever did with the deck was an online reading in a forum for a sceptical fella who didn't have much time for tarot but allowed me to read for him cos he was too polite to say no thanks. A year or so later I found a post from the same person in question and was pleased to find he had purchased his own Osho Zen and actually did a reading for another person with it. I felt the deck had helped to inspire one more initiate into the joys of tarot and it was kind of nice to think that if my reading had helped that one person and had sparked an interest which may have led him to help another person, that was the kind of chain reaction I was happy to be a part of.

As for regret decks - the Sacred Circle and the Quest. They had both been expunged from my history until this thread dragged up the mouldy old bones of my past.

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It's funny you should quote that. My relationship with Osho Zen took a turn for the worse. I came to dislike it (it was the sword suit and the expectation that I be 'perfect' that finished it for me). I gave it away.

Morgane_49 said:

Sweet Twilight - found it too naive and juvenile for my taste, and passed it on to my son - he loves it.

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Wow I'm near my 40's and love Sweet Twilight, always suspected I'm not very mature ;-) But my biggest dissapointment was the Legacy of the Divine. I had the Polish version of it because I though the Lewellyn cards are usually too flimsy for me, and I really thought I will like that deck for a long time. So the Polish version is sturdy, and has gold edges and I waited for a long time for it to be shipped over, and I loved it until I looked at the Hierophant card and I thought Wow what a mistake. I just couldn't get over it, that in a kind of phantasy themed deck somebody would place the card which is so realistic and the Pope even looking like The Pope John Paul the Second, and other religious figures. I thought maybe I would spray that card black or something, this would express the transcendency and space of mind I associate with that card, but finally I gave it to my friend not mentioning my feelings. She loves it.

Oh, and any decks with serial numbers on the edges like most US Games, I just think it's shameful to spoil the artwork like this, and it feels cheap, of course they are cheap, but anyway could at least pretend.

blackstormhawk said:

I luckily avoided that one ... I don't groove to the Bagwan Shree Rajneesh or his teachings.

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I had it for a while just out of curiosity, and it got me sad that it claimed to be Buddhist, I hope people who like that deck won't read it, but maybe Zen on drugs for me. Very twisted.

I really wish I hadn't bought the Tarot of the Sweet Twilight. Really. It's lovely to look at, absolute crap to try to read with. I wrote paragraphs and paragraphs of describing the images I saw, creating their back story, then at best getting a sentence on how it related to me, and then only in vague, general terms.

Oh, and the Death card? Death carrying a sleeping/unconscious/dead woman across a desert landscape like a lover carrying his beloved, felt like an incitement to suicide. I'm depressed enough as it is without that turning up in my readings. (cue "Don't Fear the Reaper")

Supposedly it's a great deck to read with intuitively, but it didn't give my intuition much to work with.

Total waste of money.

Asbestos Mango said:

I really wish I hadn't bought the Tarot of the Sweet Twilight. Really. It's lovely to look at, absolute crap to try to read with. I wrote paragraphs and paragraphs of describing the images I saw, creating their back story, then at best getting a sentence on how it related to me, and then only in vague, general terms.

Oh, and the Death card? Death carrying a sleeping/unconscious/dead woman across a desert landscape like a lover carrying his beloved, felt like an incitement to suicide. I'm depressed enough as it is without that turning up in my readings. (cue "Don't Fear the Reaper")

Supposedly it's a great deck to read with intuitively, but it didn't give my intuition much to work with.

Total waste of money.

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I also find this deck incredibly sad and soulful, I can see why you find it depressing. If I'd took more time to look at the images properly, I wouldn't have bought it either.

Emily said:

I also find this deck incredibly sad and soulful, I can see why you find it depressing. If I'd took more time to look at the images properly, I wouldn't have bought it either.

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I looked over the images several times and realized this deck wasn't for me. Glad I never bought it!

Emily said:

I also find this deck incredibly sad and soulful, I can see why you find it depressing. If I'd took more time to look at the images properly, I wouldn't have bought it either.

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See I find it gentle and uplifting.

It just goes to show that you should be very very careful not to be too swayed by other people's opinions of a deck, you need to make your own mind up for yourself. Of course that often only comes when you have it!

Gaian. All those extravert people being extravert, and the geese migrating for the ten of Swords... doesn't work at all for me.