Best Bargains

[Emily]

I think my best find was on holiday in Wales last year. I wondered into this bargain bookshop and saw sitting on the shelf the Enchanted tarot (the large Zerner Farber) complete with book. It was the last one on the shelf and I managed to get to it before another customer who was making a beeline for it lol.
I'd been looking at the small Zerner Farber online before I went away on holiday so I happily bought this one for £7.99. I'm not sure what it sells for now but I know I got a bargain.

 

[MoreMagic]

Last summer I went into a giant Barnes and Noble just to browse, and on one of the many sale tables I found 11 copies of my favorite deck, the Aquarian Tarot. They were new and sealed, marked half off, then 75% off of the half, then covered with a "special discount" sticker. I took six decks (don't ask me why I didn't take them all, I don't know) to the check-out counter, and after the sales clerk scanned them, I ended up paying nine dollars for all of them. I ran out of there as if I'd stolen them! When I went back a few days later, the decks were freshly marked at $15.00 a piece, sitting demurely on the shelf with the rest of the new decks. Well, at least now all my best Tarot friends have a copy of my favorite deck, and I have one for back-up. Serendipity???

 

[Marie]

I found a Motherpeace round deck at a thrift store here for $2.00 once!! It has suck a nice loved kind of vibe.
I recently found a Frouds Fairy Oracle for $1.50. No book or box, just the cards and they are pretty worn. They don't have as good a vibe plus oracles just don't do much for me these days. Still a good bargain! And the art is excellent, I have been a fan of the Froud's art, oh, since I was a teenager.

Vita Dolce,
Marie

 

[arcanalefait]

speaking of bargains...

Just saw a Shakespearian on sale on Amazon.com's used item list for about 15 dollars--if anyone's interested, check it out!

 

[Chronata]

My best bargains have been Garage sales in the past...that's where my Tarot of Southwest Sacred Tribes, Tarot Balbi, 1JJ Swiss, Hoi Polloi...and a few others came from. I paid anywhere from 50 cents to a dollar a deck...but that was back when they were not Out Of Print!

Recently,I found the Tarot of Baseball in a close-out store for $1.50. It has since become one of my favorite decks...so I went back and bought the last four copies they had!

But ...a friend of mine has me beat...he works for a comic store and found an un-opened copy of the 1st edition Vertigo in the back room about a month ago....his boss sold it to him for $5.

 

[Demonesse]

MoreMagic, that is simply amazing!

 

[lawguy51]

Best deal? Free. Quest Tarot came in a symposium loot bag. So did a strange major only deck from Italy, forget what it's called and don't want to get up to look!

Lawguy51

 

[Melvis]

Excellent thread idea, Gerbear! We all know the Tarotholic in us just loves to brag about the deals we've gotten!

Just last month, within a couple weeks of each other, I found both the Norse Tarot and the Greenwood Tarot for less than $14.00 each at Half-Price Books. I was VERY excited, to say the least!

And I got both the Healing Earth and the PoMo tarots from used bookstores very early in my tarot-collecting career, before I knew how rare they were.

Peace,

Melvis

 

[Voodoo_Shaman]

Hello Every one. my greatest find was in a flea market, and I came along a boxed set of the Tarot of the Saints, for 5 bucks. I almost had a heart attack as I quiuckly grabbed it. The book that comes with the deck is amazing, and the biblical tales really go well. I use it alot, with Hispanics who find confort in the images of the Saints. Anyway, the box was opened, the deck was looked at, but in perfect condition, the book was barely touched. I saved about 30.00.

 

[Cerulean]

www.abebooks.com/ and others

1. If you know the author, sometimes you can find a book or deck somewhere in a different area, even a different country for a reasonable price. I never found a Folchi or well-known tarot artist or author for a less expensive price, but the smaller press versions emerge in used bookstore listings.

Used bookstores or friends that haunt independent 'metaphysical' or 'used' bookstores in certain areas can yield finds. A local used bookstore yielded a 1980's reissue of Tarot Balbi, a Marseilles variant, and a black and white pop tarot (20th Century) for less than $10.00. I found a French translation of the Oswald Wirth's book and the majors reissued in an anniversary edition for the same price...but this is over eight to ten months of looking periodically.

2. From a Minneapolis friend: they had a few oop European (Masonic/Ashkroft-Norwicki's Shakespeare) tarot kits for about $25.00 earlier this year:

http://www.magusbooks.com/main/

3. Gerbear meantioned the Bodhi Tree bookstore, which my sister took me to when I visited her area. Also in Southern California, at least last year, a small retail chain in California called the Psychic Eye had stores in San Francisco, Mountain View, and one or two down in the coastal cities...Redondo or Hermosa Beach?

I don't know if it still exists, because one of the local Northern Cal stores closed...and they used to carry AGMueller titles. The area code was 310 if you live in Southern California...

4. Sometimes local Borders, Barnes and Noble and regional bookstores carry artists and authors titles...Guardians of Wisdom is regional to Monterey, Ca., for instance...but it can be luck of the draw.

I found a very funky, not especially recommended "Love is the Earth" tarot is regional to some of the Southern Cal beach cities. The box had the best collage samples on the cover. It was very lucky for me that someone had a sick friend who liked that sort of thing, because it wasn't worth the weight it added to my luggage, for me.

Happy hunting, hope some of these yield finds!

Mari H.