Hi everyone, based on the responses here and visitors to my web site it seems that a good number have been looking at the images there. There also appears to be two active threads, this and the one on the deck creation forum.
So I may (with the moderators permission) post this response on both as its important.
Regarding the issue of price. I don't want raise hopes here and I also would like to clarify my intentions and some terminology. Limited editions as the name suggests are items produced in finite numbers, so in addition to their inherent value there is also the collectable value based on the items availability or lack thereof. Thats why you get incredible price jumps on e-bay based on out of print decks. Limited editions of many tarot decks seem to be a common theme now.
Just because a deck is self published, (as in the case of the Tarot of Dreams) does not make it a limited edition. The reason I self published is that I wanted to produce it in the way I had envisioned it as opposed to it being modified and diluted by a major publishers committee. Which would have been the case.
My intention and hope is that as many people that think they want this deck and like the images they see on line can afford it, lets be honest the economy is bad and adding yet another tarot deck to your collection is hardly a necessity. So thats why I decided to agree to license the deck to Llewellyn for mass production. The production numbers keep the unit prices down and they have the distribution and network that I don't. So hopefully with a little more patience there will be a Divine Legacy at your local Barnes and Nobel or Amazon by this time next year.
However, beyond that, I wanted to create something special, hence my referring to this other version of the Legacy project not as a limited edition, but as a special edition. That's not just playing with words, there's a difference. As I indicate on my web site. I will be actually producing variations of several cards, and printing all of those different version. So in fact I will be printing far more than just the number of cards necessary for a 78 card deck. Then during the assembly process which will be by hand. Those variables will be collated randomly. So that the final configuration of each deck will vary from one to another. Statistically it will be almost impossible for any two decks to be made up of the same 78 images. Each deck will be signed and include message, quote or dedication of your choice.
My intention is that the deck will be a package that also contains a fully illustrated book, not a plain old companion book that provides yet another explanation of the cards, but an original short story (on which the movie is based). The intention is that these books will be hand made one at a time, on fine art paper and wrapped in a leather flap (think something that Gandalf would be walking around with under his arm). The package would also include a large museum quality giclée reproduction of your personal Tarot Birth Card.
These are only intentions at this point, I will be going through production cost later this week to see how viable they are. But to be honest the reference point that was guessed in the earlier post is unrealistic. and I wanted to at least clarify that. In fact I have to be honest and I'm rather confused as to how to proceed. I had initially envisioned this special edition as being really quite exclusive, and something that would be produced only in small quantities for a select few. I've been rather taken by surprise and honored by the number of enquiries I've recieved. In fact, in the case of the hand made book, I'm not sure I would even be capable of producing them in the quantity that now might have to be considered. I'll have to chew this one over.
By the way here are some references to the 12 Birth Cards that will be offered soon as separate prints, but also included with the special edition.
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