The 'right' waite! - which pictures?

I have a deck of the 'standard' rider-waite cards (with blue skies) and the so-called 'original' rider waite cards (turquoise skies when not yellow, and with tudor-rose backs). I notice some drawings between these cards have differences, mainly in the faces e.g. Empress, king of swords. The faces on the standard rider-waite are as in waites book 'the pictorial key to the tarot', and I do prefer these to the 'original' version.Can anyone help me with some questions please?

Did PCS do more than one set of drawings (or even more) as the pack developed? I notice that the 'standard' pack, as I call it, also states it is the only official authorised version, as used by Waite himself! Which of these two packs is 'original'?

By the way, as the Rider pack goes, I love the Albano version above all, and despite some strange colours is a lovely pack when laid out in a spread. I do, though, treasure all the 3 packs (I've not gone for the 'universal' yet ) whose colour variations suit different moods.

I have the 'original' with teal back and 'universal' with black backs and gold stars on it.

I got both at the same time on purpose to study them side by side. Someone will tell us if I'm wrong, but the original is the closest we will be to PCS's original drawings today, unless you become a collector of the really early printings. But if you put the decks side by side you can see much detail in the universal has been lost. So many of the funny little things that have turned up in the long long Rider-Waite study thread.

If I remember correctly one example would be in the two death cards. On the original there is an arrow behind death's foot which points to the cave on the other side of the river. It isn't there in the softened version. So in choosing something that might be easier on their eyes deck users who want to really learn the deck miss a lot.

Perhaps one of the moderators can post the link to the Rider-Waite study group with that great thread in it. It starts something along the line of 'what I just noticed after 30 years of looking at these cards'.

Sorry, but the "Original" RWS as sold by US Games is based on a badly printed "Pamela C" and not much like the first 1909-1910 edition. It is much too yellow and muddy and the line drawings themselves have been changed. The standard yellow box edition as printed by AGMuller in Switzerland is closest to the true original as you can get, although the lines and colors are a bit off. You can see the decks compared in K. Frank Jensen's essential work: _The Story of the Waite-Smith Tarot_ (available from the Assoc for Tarot Studies) and also on Holly Voley's website at http://home.comcast.net/~vilex/

Because the printing of the first decks was by lithography (offset from stones) the designs were drawn onto the stone, but they got cruder and more heavy-handed as they went along, especially after photo-lithography of earlier decks replaced the original method.

If you really want to study the images, get a AGMueller printed Giant Rider Waite off Ebay. It also helps to study the B&W line drawings from Waite's PKT (reproduced faithfully in most newer editions of the book).

Mary

Thanks Mary, for setting us straight, I appreciate the information.