whats the best rider waite deck

knightofrainbows

i want to buy a waite card deck but dont know which one is the best.
which one do you think is the best in terms of symbols and colour.
 

Flavio

May I suggest the Universal Waite, the colors are softer and more beautiful than those of the RWS and Mary Hanson (colorist) detailed the faces of the characters. Be sure the symbolism is not lost because of "new" coloring.
 

Little Baron

Flavio is right that the Universal is much softer to the eye and clearer. I do have that deck. However, personally, I prefer the 'Original Rider Waite' with it's harsh lines and fewer amount of colours. Because everything is not cleaned up so much, you can see stuff within the lines - check out the threads about hidden stuff (the skull within a cup, the two faces of the girl on the '6 of Cups'). Those things have been wiped away with the new coloured versions.

Yabs
 

Flavio

Yaboot said:
check out the threads about hidden stuff (the skull within a cup, the two faces of the girl on the '6 of Cups'). Those things have been wiped away with the new coloured versions.
Yaboot is right on this, as some lines which originally were black and changed to another tone for example in 7 of cups the skull is a little bit harder to see but is there, if it is your 1st experience with a RWS deck, you can do any of these:

1. Get the original RWS or
2. Get a colored version and check out the hidden stuff threads as Yaboot suggested.
 

Umbrae

Flavio said:
Yaboot is right on this...Get the original RWS...
It's not as 'colorful', but it's a better deck than the others. All the others are 're-colorings'. I like the original. With the Tudor Rose back…
 

Fulgour

like a pre-1971 Rider of London deck

The nearest thing (an "exact" match) to the pre-USGames version
that I have found is the AGMueller German-language edition.
The colours, the feel, the wholeness of the imagery is all still there.
 

CreativeFire

hi knightorainbows, I have a version of the Rider-Waite-Smith, the Radiant Rider Waite and the Universal Waite.

Personally I much prefer the colouring in the Universal Waite and use this as one of my main reading decks. However even though I don't like the harsher lines and colours in the original RWS, I often use it for study or to check back to, as others have mentioned above there are some slight differences in the Universal Waite and Radiant colouring that misses a couple of the details.

If you are going to get a RWS - my preference would be the one that Umbrae mentioned with the Tudor Rose backs and not the black and blue cross-hatch design (which really turns me off this deck - but I have a thing about deck backs ;) )

Good luck in your search and purchase.

CreativeFire
 

Lee

The deck which Umbrae and CreativeFire are referring to is this one:

http://www.learntarot.com/owdesc.htm

It comes in a dark blue box.

One thing that I don't like so much about this deck is that anything that's blue in the yellow-box version is greenish in this version. That means all skies and water are green. Also, the lines of the drawings are rougher and thicker and I don't find them very appealing.

One thing I do like is the colors which are printed with tiny dots. It gives it a real "old-fashioned" flavor.

-- Lee