Creating a deck from two "normal" decks of playing cards

SageNC started a thread about their daughter who was in prison making their own tarot set out of two normal decks. The question was actually about recommended books but this got me thinking about how you would best go about making a tarot deck from two normal ones. I don't know whether there are suggestions in any books. I suppose the way I would go about it is to use the Jacks from the second set as Heralds, two jokers as Fool and Magician, two queens as Empress and High Priestess, two Kings as Emperor and High Priest, ace of diamonds as Star, two of hearts as lovers then I get a bit stuck. How have other people gone about this?

I'll ask my daughter when she calls tomorrow how she made her deck.

Glad to see the thread up! This will be fun!

I think I'd like to set one up using a novelty four-color deck for the Majors. Copag and Modiano have a poker-sized deck:
Hearts are Red, Spades are Black (normal)
Clubs are Green
Diamonds are Blue (Ace works cool as the Star!)

What would be the best way to mark the Roman Numerals?

Okie dokie! I've been playing around with this. Take it with a grain of salt because I freely admit that I dabble with many methods of cartomancy.

Using the 4 Jacks as Pages will depend on how you see the suit correspondences. But, usually the Tarot to pc suits are set up as:
Wands- Clubs
Cups- Hearts
Swords- Spades
Pentacles- Diamonds

For the 2 Jokers, I would have the Fool be the black-and-white version; the Magician would be the colored one!

High Priestess ~ Queen of Diamonds
Empress ~ Queen of Clubs

High Priest ~ King of Diamonds
Emperor ~ King of Clubs

Star ~ Ace of Diamonds
Lovers ~ Two of Hearts

Without changing the ones mentioned above, I assigned these cards from the 2nd deck:
Chariot ~ Six of Hearts
Strength ~ Three of Hearts
Hermit ~ Eight of Clubs
Wheel ~ Six of Clubs
Justice ~ Eight of Diamonds
Hanged Man ~ Seven of Hearts
Death ~ Ace of Spades
Temperance ~ Two of Clubs
Devil ~ Four of Spades
Tower ~ Seven of Spades
Moon ~ Nine of Spades
Sun ~ Three of Diamonds
Judgment ~ Four of Diamonds
World ~ Ten of Clubs

I did not use the Fives and limited my choice to only 1 each of the Nine and Ten. Other cards of Aces through Eight have 2 each.

Alternatives?

I love this. I think I'm going to make my own set. I've got several proper sets of cards, but the great thing about making your own is that you can draw on the cards to label them and add extra notes to help learn various characteristics (without feeling you're defacing them)

I had come to the same concluson about the Hermit being 8 Clubs, but I think that Rachel Pollack might advise Knight of Hearts for Death and 4 of Clubs for the Tower.

I can definitely get with the 4C as the Tower too! One of the things I love about the playing cards is that you truly can design your own system and peg your personal associations with the suit symbols, numbers and even pip patterns.

I've done it!

I found two old sets of playing cards last night and made my own tarot.

Cardlady -- I've followed your idea completely (adapted with 4C as Tower).

One of the great things I like is that you can write any notes you like. Good idea for beginners. And cheap!

...also...

SageNC -- I'd still be interested to hear how your daughter did it.

Best wishes,

SP

Are you here yet, hunter?

Cardlady, thank you for the list, and for linking me to this old thread!

I asked about this awhile back and got no response. I wanted to just include the meaning of the majors into the pips most like them.

Today I bought two decks with the same backs, but one with regular faces, and one with jumbo faces.

I made the pips the regular faced numbered cards. The pages the regular faced jacks. All the rest of the courts are the large faced courts. The fool the joker. Majors 1 through 10 the large faced cards A-10 hearts. Majors 11-20 the large faced A-10 clubs. The World the A of diamonds.

The book for the Vampyres tarot divides up the majors into 3 groups really based on the Hebrew letters and looks a LOT weaker than card lady's list. Some other books divide up the majors into 3 groups of 7, which again was pretty weak. Using these lists will weaken and confuse the story of a spread I'm afraid.

Now I just need to decide if I want to use cardlady's associations with 1 deck, or 2.

Hmm...I don't get the empress and high priestess :-0 the Empress isn't diamonds?