"Locally" produced tarot deck?

true3lue

Hi, my name is Hannah, I'm new to the forum. I looked around for an answer to this question here but didn't see one - if someone has an answer that would be great (a redirect to another thread would be fine too, as I'm not pretending I couldn't have overlooked one!)

I've only recently gotten back into tarot. I've been using the Mythic Tarot deck by Liz Greene which I've had since I was about 7 years old (I'm 25 now), but I don't really connect with the images much anymore. I want to get a traditonal Rider-Waite deck (I've learned a lot about the symbolism and it just makes sense to me,) and I'm trying to decide where to buy one.....

The difficulty I'm having is that I don't feel comfortable buying from somewhere like Amazon etc. I think of tarot as energy tools, so the energy that goes in to making them feels important to me too! I don't like the idea of having a deck that was made in a huge factory by underpaid workers.

There's of course the option of a locally owned Occult bookstore, but that only solves the distributor issue... Are there any small print shops out there that print tarot cards? I'm not worried about them actually being local to my location, I would just love to get a deck that isn't from faceless some mass-producer.

Thanks in advance for any insight to my dilemma!
 

schizandra

I don't know about local print shops, or even small print shops that aren't necessarily local. But if all you're trying to avoid is the corporate, mass-production energy, what I'd suggest is is looking into independent Tarot creators, of which there are many. Look into the decks of Ciro Marchetti, Robert Place, and the Malpertuis decks (all of them have independently produced decks). Or try Etsy, or GameCrafter.
 

feynrir

true3lue said:
[...]The difficulty I'm having is that I don't feel comfortable buying from somewhere like Amazon etc. I think of tarot as energy tools, so the energy that goes in to making them feels important to me too! I don't like the idea of having a deck that was made in a huge factory by underpaid workers.

There's of course the option of a locally owned Occult bookstore, but that only solves the distributor issue... Are there any small print shops out there that print tarot cards? I'm not worried about them actually being local to my location, I would just love to get a deck that isn't from faceless some mass-producer.

Thanks in advance for any insight to my dilemma!
Click to expand...
I admire your commitment to your moral code. :)

I don't know where exactly you live. Your profile says that you live in Illinois, and hooray! I actually grew up in Illinois! :) It's a big state, but if you live in or near Chicago at least, you can be sure an independent printing press is not too far away from you. However, I think there is a slim chance that they will actually be producing tarot cards. What is more, even if they are producing tarot cards, does an independent printing firm like that have the right to print such-and-such particular deck that you may want? USGames holds the copyright on the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot; thems the rules, far as I know. And infringing upon copyright may breach your moral code, as well as get those folks in trouble.

I think a nice compromise to your situation would be to purchase a deck from an independent artist/deck producer over the internet. I have done this many a time, and independent decks are often the most beautiful. And many are based on the Rider-Waite-Smith system!

Here is a tiny list of some nice independent decks that you may like, all RWS-based:

- Daniloff Tarot on Alexander Daniloff's site (one of the most beautiful decks ever made, to me)
- Ellis DecK on the artist's site and Veroosh's site
- Dame Darcy Tarot (a popular one and very close to RWS!) on Etsy
- Efflorescent Tarot on Etsy

There are so many more.

This does not answer your question about local decks, per se, but I wish you all the luck in sussing out what is in your area and what artists/printers may be up to over there.
 

true3lue

Thanks very much for your input everyone! Yes I do live in Chicago actually. I hadn't even considered the whole copyright thing! Thanks again :)
 

HudsonGray

Local as in regards to the deck artists?

Julia Cuccia-Watts is in Watertown or Madison, WI and came out with the Ancestral Path Tarot, Blue Moon Tarot, the Journey Into Egypt Tarot and the Maat Tarot.

I did the Ferret Tarot, I'm in Milwaukee.

I know there are others but at the moment I can't think of specific artists.
 

McFaire

Also there are some nice decks by companies like USG that were originally self-published, like the Anna K for example. The artist created a beautiful deck, self-published it, and it was so well-loved that USG became her publisher.

In this scenario the artist gets royalties just like the author of a book, and the quantity the artist can sell is much higher because of the publisher's marketing and distribution networks.

Often times you are still supporting artists/writers when you buy from large publishers. Just a thought.

I do have a special fondness for self-published decks though. :)
 

FLizarraga

McFaire said:
Also there are some nice decks by companies like USG that were originally self-published, like the Anna K for example. The artist created a beautiful deck, self-published it, and it was so well-loved that USG became her publisher.
Click to expand...

By the way, Anna K is still selling the copies she has left of the self-published edition: http://www.annak-tarot.at/Anna_Englisch/kauf_e.html, so you can support her either way.

I have both. The USG edition is excellent IMHO, with images that are a little larger and brighter, but the cardstock of the self-published one is, predictably, a lot better.
 
Decks that expand on the RWS system? Question about Hexen 2.0