why do you collect tarot cards?

[Rhinemaiden]

As I look at my growing collection of tarot decks, I am reminded of a childhood passion for collecting, what we called then, trading cards. These were playing cards from old decks belonging to our parents. What we were interested then were the card backs. We stored the cards in cardboard shoe boxes, some divided their collections into catagories with hand-made dividers cut from cardboard, and traded them with the other kids in the neighborhood. After trading cards I moved on to baseball cards and remember pooling my meager savings with my brother to buy a package of truly awful cookies -- as I recall the cookies were bright pink, cerise to be precise -- that contained an entire set cards for the hometown team. And of course all that bubble gum I purchased just for the cards. After a long hiatus from card collecting, I'm back to it again with tarot/oracle/playing cards and loving it just as much as I did when I was a kid.

What got you started collecting tarot cards?

 

[gregory]

How I STARTED - I was plain mad at my SO (we were rather on the outs at the time). He had bought a deck, and I didn't have one. So on PRINCIPLE I bought a different one in KMart. (YES, I do mean KMart.)

I didn't get it at all, but it was ever so different from his (he had RWS University books, I got an 1JJ). This was interesting.

Then I was wandering around Toronto and lo, verily, behold - A THOTH. Like WOW ! Even more different. I started to compare. This was VERY interesting indeed.

THEN I found Occult shops in both London (UK) and Toronto. It was the comparing that really got me into it all. There is something different about every single one. In that sense I do so use them all, contrary to everyone's suspicion that I just store them. I don't READ with them all (though I might at any time) but I DO look.

 

[jema]

lol too funny Gregory, to start collecting out of SPITE. love it

I started cause I didn't really 'get' my first deck - the Fournier TdM and thought perhaps I should try this Rider-Waite one I saw. Then I gave that one away to a friend and had to replace it with the Herbal, and buy back the Rider deck, and saw they had this kinda cute Hanson-Roberts sitting there on a market table. Then I was happy with those decks for years until I found Internet! and this forum only in a different version. My first year here I must have bought 10 decks.
I collected other things too in my life. Snowglobes, tiny glass animals, certain books. Now I only got tarot and books.

Hey at least I am not collecting cats

 

[gregory]

I'd have said RAGE and ENVY (well, "you can't have anything I don't have," more...) more than spite

 

[Cassandra022]

so...if mr. gregory hadn't bought that first deck... :0

 

[EllieP]

....gregory would have a lot more room in her house

I have always collected something so it doesn't surprise me I'm collecting more tarot decks than I need - even though I only tally 22 at present. I'm restraining myself after years of realising I go the whole hog and spend too much.

But years ago it was series of books, stamps, even labels off tinned goods (from penfriends abroad too), I collected pen friends themselves at one time, foreign newspapers, magazines in collectible form (art, craft, composers, history etc), those (Panini?) sticker books kids collect now, sets of embroideries (the cottage ones and others, for those in the know about such things) and then one particular composer's CDs (erm 44 to date), and now tarot cards. What's unusual?!

I actually had a dragons deck (LoS) ages before I knew what they really were, because I loved the dragons. I think it was a nudge from Est that made me realise there were "better" ones (my personal judgement, that) and this coincided with a realisation that I had always read meaning into picture cards using the ones we have in therapy and coaching. It was a tiny sideways step to read tarot. Self development and spirituality were on the agenda anyway and happily tied in here also. Amazing how things come together, isn't it? It was meant to be.

 

[Bhavana]

I blame the internet for anything I have collected in the past decade. It has opened up a whole new world for acquiring things.

For about 20 years I lived with only 2 decks - a Sacred Rose I bought in the early or mid 80's, and the first edition Mythic. I eventually got rid of the Mythic, only to accidently see it online 5 or so years ago for a lot more than what i paid - I was intrigued that the cards had gone up in value. And, after looking around online at other decks, I fell in love with the Deviant Moon. After buying it and marveling at the art and the wonderful cardstock, I went back to Barnes n Noble and started scoping out other decks available....Then, I became a paid subscriber here after just being an unpaid one for a few years....and it has all been downhill from there!

I think it is the artwork that attracts me most.

 

[Padma]

Fascinating stories! I really enjoyed reading everyone's tale... thanks for starting the thread, Rhinemaiden

I started reading tarot at age 13, when my sister's friend gave her a Swiss deck, but sis never used it so I apprehended it I tried to figure everything about Tarot out by myself. Just guesswork! lol. I shudder to think of the readings I did for the other kids at school, because I hadn't the faintest idea of what I was doing. Then my mom left the Catholic Church, and bought some majors along with a Reader's Digest book about the Tarot. I played with those a lot. Then I began getting massive flashes of intuition and precognition, stimulated by the Tarot, I think.

My dad bought me an Aquarian deck when I read his playing cards incorrectly, and predicted my uncle's death as an argument with my dad. (Unca Ed was dad's best friend, and he died of a heart attack a few weeks after I predicted that.) Dad said, if you are going to do this, do it right! ;p (man, I felt bad about that!)

I only collected 4 decks in the last 20 years, and only used one of those, and then being here opened my eyes massively - I guess, like EllieP Everything happens for a reason. Now I can't get my fill - I already have about 12 new decks and I am always on the look out for more. Like Bhavana, I love them for the art - they are like tiny art galleries...I love beauty, and the Tarot is replete with it! So I collect for the images that kiss my eyes

 

[Chiriku]

Short answers:

Pre-tarot hiatus: "The One" and the art
Post-tarot hiatus: useful variations and layers in meaning

Detailed answer:

I used to collect because I was looking for The Deck, My Deck. This started very early in my tarot life, within a few months of teaching myself to read using a RWS clone. Anything that came across my radar was fair game for being added to my collection.

On some subconscious level, I must have known they weren't the One, and that I was collecting them (a) for the art, and (b) because when I devote myself to any enterprise, I do it "whole hog" as someone above said, investigating every nook and cranny and trying to assimilate it.

Now, many years later, I carefully acquire only those decks that serve a specific function or purpose for me or my querents. But I continue to acquire, albeit it with great circumspection. This time around, my fancying the art takes (far) second place to the goal of having a deck that offers new or different interpretations or layers of meaning for me to integrate into the "tarot encyclopedia" in my head.

 

[firefrost]

AT's fault, in a nutshell! I'd been playing happily with my (sometimes shared) RWS for years until I became an active member here.

AT saw me collect, then sell/trade/give away and get back to realising I only need the chosen few.

I think my tarot books take up more space than my decks now...!