Do owners of rare decks have a responsibility towards them?

I consider myself an artist, and I studied art history in college for several years, but I just cannot have the same emotional reaction to a tarot deck being sold card by card to an ancient monument being destroyed. Think me uncultured or a philistine if you want, but emotionally, I'm just not feeling that metaphor.

I think buying a centuries old deck and setting it on fire would be super awful, yeah, and I agree that the best place for a really old work of art is a museum, ideally on display. But I also am more inclined to view a tarot deck as 78 individual works of art, and if the cards are separated but well kept, I just don't have an issue. If we want to talk about museums, collections travel all the time, and sometimes one piece of a manuscript will be here and the other will be there. The overall cultural value is the same and the history doesn't evaporate for it being stored in pieces.

If you want to say that selling a deck card by card increases the chances that some of the cards will be lost, damaged, or, yes, set on fire--then this is true; I agree. But does that mean that, say, antique jewelry shouldn't be sold to private collectors because they might mess it up? At what point is a historical artifact so absolutely SACRED that we can't trust the common man with it at all?

SarahJoy said:

I think you're discussing a different idea than everyone else. You seem to be thinking about this as "any rare OOP deck". The question is more about impossibly rare historically significant decks.

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And this is an issue how often that Joe Blow owns an impossibly rare historically significant deck? ;-)

goldenVI said:

And this is an issue how often that Joe Blow owns an impossibly rare historically significant deck? ;-)

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Very occasionally indeed. But it IS the case that this came up about a Sangreal a few years ago.

gregory said:

Very occasionally indeed. But it IS the case that this came up about a Sangreal a few years ago.

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I remember that thread! If I recall correctly, it was an incomplete Sangreal? Or did the seller figure it out after the fact he was trying to split up the deck? Regardless, it's very rare for sure to see valuable decks being offered card-by-card.

Personally, I would never do anything like that with decks in my antique collection - I have a couple 200-year-old Marseilles and Lombardy tarots in like-new condition, which I acquired them strictly for studying purpose. They are well preserved and always handled with extreme care. To me, their historical significance simply overrides the monetary value, and therefore, I feel uncomfortable with intentionally splitting up the decks for financial gain or other reasons. However, if a particular deck is incomplete to begin with, say only 10 out of 78 cards are in existence, then I find it understandable if the owner chooses to break up the deck.

bonebeach said:

If you want to say that selling a deck card by card increases the chances that some of the cards will be lost, damaged, or, yes, set on fire--then this is true; I agree. But does that mean that, say, antique jewelry shouldn't be sold to private collectors because they might mess it up? At what point is a historical artifact so absolutely SACRED that we can't trust the common man with it at all?

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Good questions. I suppose it becomes "sacred" after a time, or due to its importance. A piece of jewelry may have great significance and history, but jewelry thieves purposely separate the stones from the rest, sometimes even re-cutting the gems in order to make them un-traceable. In that case, although the basic material is still there, it is most certainly not the same piece. Divorced from its context, the piece ceases to exist.

It also depends on what is done to and with the artifact. Much of what ISIS is destroying hasn't been properly studied or excavated, so that's history lost that we will never know about. In the case of decks this is perhaps a moot point, but how many decks do we know about that were lost, probably because at the time preservation wasn't a priority. Who knows what we would have today if people did preserve things? A complete Carey-Yale? Other decks with missing Trumps or Minors? Maybe the first real Tarot deck ever made? Maybe there are questions about Tarot history we could definitively answer, if only this or that deck survived. But all are lost, and important pieces of Tarot history and heritage lost with them.

Proof of how disastrous the ravages of time can be can be found precisely in those decks that don't exist anymore, and will never exist again.

Yes they do. Owners of anything rare has a moral obligation to preserve its integrity.

Sadly, rare things don't become rare until it is rare. And not everything rare is valuable.

EnchantedShadow said:

I remember that thread! If I recall correctly, it was an incomplete Sangreal?

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I THOUGHT it was a complete one, one of two they owned. (they lived in the city where the deck had been printed and some had been thrown away around the time of printing...)

If (when) I get a Pam A/B/C/D I will read CONSTANTLY with that thing. Probably not on bad tables like I would with a yellow box Rider but it will see use.

When I learned about how violinists long to play instruments that are centuries old I changed my mind about rare tarot reading and immediately sought out a University Press Rider just so I could experience what it's like to reade with more vintage cards. It totally makes a difference.

I think there is a difference between a Stradivarius and a Tarot deck, if only because of the materials they are made of. A violin can be fixed and restored, while even a creased card can't be completely mended.

Plus it's kind of like using Louis Vuitton condoms. You could, but they wouldn't make your sex any better and for normal day to day use, a simple condom (and deck!) would seem to do just as well.

Here ya go, boyz and girlz-

For quite some time, this outfit has been selling singles from various old decks, most notably a Minchiate, for roughly $100 apiece
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Capricorn-c...430?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cfd1ca036

They sold a single court card from (purportedly) ~1740 Marseille deck for $200. http://www.ebay.com/itm/c1740-Early...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

No way to know if they're breaking complete decks. The "certificate of authenticity" is a marketing ploy.

It's harder and harder to find complete old decks from the 1800's and earlier.

About 7-8 years ago, one particular e-bay buyer with deep pockets vacuumed up everything in sight (looking at you, neogeese, whoever you are).

More recently, people have convinced themselves that tarot cards are "investments." Thus we see gimmicks like "certificates of authenticity" for old cards, and multiple "editions" of contemporary decks.

I've bought small sets of 3-10 old cards. Several had been framed for hanging some time in the past. I think the most I ever paid was $30 or so. I'm happy to have them--I take an interest in the art and the printing, so reproductions are of less interest.

When it's daytime I'll photograph some. I keep them in a box labeled "individual old cards"