Minchiate

[Lillie]

What cards are fuzzy?

I don't have the original so I can't compare.

I noticed that although most cards were sharp in their printing others seemed less so.
Only a few.
And not much.

I imagined that this was an artefact of the original originals they were taken from.

Charity. She don't look as clear as the others, for instance. But when I look close at the lines they are sharp enough. It looks like it was poorly printed in the first place and the repro copies that faithfully.

If I can get the scanner working I can scan a few. Tell me which ones you want to see.

That's a bit of a big if on the scanner, by the way.
It's knackered.

[Le Fanu]

Some examples, it's very slight but I am keen to know...

Please check out the following;

Top left Coin in the 5 of Coins

Top part of the 7 of Wands

Upper Cup in the two of Cups (only slight but compared to the other...)

Upper Cup in the 4 of Cups

Card XVIIII

Card I (Bateleur?)

Top part of card VIII

Number on card XXVI

The little monkey at the top of the 4 of Swords

There may be others but going through the earlier edition of the deck, these ones stand out. It doesn't have to be a scan if your machine doesn't want to, but you could just have a look at these cards..

Thanks

[Lillie]

Oh! I see what you mean.

To be honest the only one where it seems actually blurred is the very top art of VIII (justice) the scroll is 'soft' not 'sharp'. I hadn't noticed that. It's very minor.
And perhaps the little monkey, though isn't he supposed to be like that?

The others, the images look rougher, but sharp. Like they were rough on the original image.

Me and my scanner are going to have a fight and we'll see who wins.

[Le Fanu]

Yes, there's varying degrees of fuzziness....

But the Meneghello Bateleur & Card XVIIII are definitely sharper.

ETA; Ooops! I think I meant Top Right in the 5 of Coins!

[Lillie]

OK.

For what it's worth. But these have been shrunk so much to be uploaded here it's a bit pointless.

Le Fanu. If you want the original scan, which is huge, I can email it to you.

[Le Fanu]

Thank you, Lillie. First impressions upon looking at these on the monitor is that they have been cleaned up slightly but not totally. The originals are understandably deteriorated.

However, one thing that definitely strikes me is that the charming "folded over" borders are larger and the images have been straightened up with the card edges. I had never noticed that the previous edition had the card images so erratically centred. I'm just noticing this now.

There's no need to send the other scans. I can see diffrences here on these.

ETA; Oh and the cards of the original edition measure 6cm X 10.8 cm. Is that the same as the new one?

[Lillie]

I love the folded edge effect.

I'm not usually big on historical decks. Mostly they leave me saying 'Meh...'. I know they are important for tarot history and all that, and I'm all for them being preserved and reproduced for the historians out there, but generally they are not for me.

But I really rather like this one. It has a very warm feeling to it. And it fits in the hand nicely. It's smaller than the standard LS deck. I don't know if the original repro was, but this is.
It's got such an old feel to it. Something very ancient.
I can't really see myself using it, but I've had a lot of pleasure looking through it, and found it a lot more interesting than I thought I would.

[Lillie]

Lol, cross post.

Fractionally smaller. 5.7 x 10.2 by my ruler.

[Le Fanu]

Originally Posted by Lillie

Lol, cross post.

Fractionally smaller. 5.7 x 10.2 by my ruler.

Just double checked. Yes, it must be fractionally smaller. It does have a very comforting feeling in the palm of your hand. Very compact and weighty, which must also come from the weight of the extra cards. It is a deck I have always loved for this and other reasons.

I hate to suggest something very naughty but I really don't see any problem with taking out the extra cards and reading it as one would a Marseilles (if the zodiac cards, Charity, Prudence etc and elements cards seem a bit impenetrable). If it was between not learning it because it has 97 cards and then customising it so it is like a familiar, useable historic deck, I'd say it's much better to use it in its changed version. No difference between that and getting a poker deck, taking out all the cards between 2-6 out and using it as a Lenormand deck. Card decks have been customised throughout history. People take the Majors out of decks all the time.

I post that because someone here once said to me "what's the point of taking the extra cards out? It isn't a Minchiate if you do that". But if you like the artwork, give it a try! There's no need to be scared of an extra 19 cards.

[jackdaw*]

Looks great. Charity and the Magician are much sharper than they were, as I recall them. Thank you for doing battle with the scanner, Lillie.