nisaba
I have quite a few decks under my belt, since I have started with Tarot, and I was wondering what the most anyone has ever paid for a Tarot Deck, and why?
The most I have paid for a hard-to-find deck that I really desired was $300, and I was on a limited budget and had to save for ages to scrape together the money. If I was on a larger income, I'd probably pay upwards of a thousand dollars for a deck that I wanted as much as that one.
Look, we see so many posts moaning about paying $40 or $50 for a deck-and-book set. Let me tell you something. I started collecting some time after I started reading, and I started collection seriously in the late eighties and early nineties. Since then, the purchasing-power of the dollar has fallen, as the cost of living has risen: I think I was buying a tank of petrol for my car for around $25 then, now it is upwards of $60. At the same time, everywhere you went, a Tarot deck on its own cost $40 or thereabouts: nearly two tanks of petrol. Now they are $25-ish, less than half a tank of petrol. Back then, deck-and-book sets cost around $90, over three tanks of petrol. Now they cost around $40 or so, just over half a tank of petrol.
Over the years, compared to the cost of living, Tarot prices have DROPPED radically. I don't mind paying a premium for an out of print or limited-edition deck, since I will have a unique object that will become only more precious as other people lose theirs or their descendants don't know what they have inherited and throw them out. And I never, ever moan about the price of new decks - I remember what they USED to cost, as a percentage of income, and nowdays they are gob-smackingly cheap.