Did you start with RWS?

Rosanne

le fey said:
During the early-70s when I got my first deck as a young teen, I think the RWS was really the only readily available deck to be had. With hindsight, I can see that this was when the deck-explosion was happening so there should have been more, but at least in the small Texas town where I bought my first deck, it was RWS or nothing. I had no idea at the time that there were other decks out there.
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I am like le fey- same story except in New Zealand; and there was a Thoth and I had heard about Crowley looked at Lady Freida Harris's Fool and thought "Yep, man deck, man is God- I Crowley am Thoth........" and bought the RWS. Used it solely for twenty some years. ~Rosanne
 

starrystarrynight

Yeah, I did, too. Still have that deck around here somewhere, as well as another newer copy that I gifted to my daughter a couple of Christmases back.
 

firemaiden

maciader said:
did anyone use the RWS deck to start out with? just curious...
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I did not. My first deck, and first point of reference was the Thoth deck. I was living in Berlin, Germany when I discovered the tarot. For some reason the Thoth is much more of the "default" deck in Germany.
 

Grizabella

I didn't. I fought it for a long, long time. But finally I realized that if I was going to REALLY learn, I was going to have to get an ugly ol' RWS and learn with it. :p So then is when I learned the most about tarot. Once I did that, it's been wonderful from there. I still have the RWS deck, but I don't use it anymore.

I think, in all honesty, that something unpleasant in my childhood must have happened that I subconsciously associate with that kind of art work and that's why I find it so ugly. I can't be sure of that, though. It's just a guess.
 

Emily

My first deck was the 1JJ Swiss, brought at 15 and quickly forgotten about.

My first 'proper' learning deck was the Original RWS but I never really appreciated the limited colours back then so it was quickly replaced with the Spiral which is a RWS clone deck. But I learned on the RWS for a good 12 months before moving on. :)
 

Lulu

I started with it in 1984. Now that I have a renewed interest in tarot, the Universal Waite was the first one I bought. There are other decks that I prefer for reading but I think this is an awesome deck for learning.

Lulu
 

memries

I used the Radiant Rider Waite..and it is a good learning tool.
 

Master_Margarita

I did for my "second time around" with tarot. The first time it was some early seventies deck of majors only marketed to teens. It might have been the Hoi Polloi. I wish I could remember.

M.
 

The crowned one

I started with the Aquarian about 1980 through 1982 I do not recall exactly. I switched over to the RWS shortly after "discovering" it.
 

Debra

Yes! It was BRAND NEW when I got it in .... 1971! Before the copyright notice appeared on the cards! It was a birthday gift from a friend (she later went on to marry my boyfriend LOL) and I still have it. It's got coffee stains. I love this deck.
 
"Original" RWS jade green RWS 101 Ace of Wands