Collecting VS. Reading

[yirabeth]

I read and collect. If I follow Meta's reasoning, I guess I'm a deliberate collector -- when I first started tarot, I tried to pick the deck for me. Lots of pretty ones but none that really called...then I saw *The One*. Okay that's my deck!

Then I joined here (before even getting that deck..I had to mail order) and saw people collect these things! This one lady has a kazillion decks!! That does it..I'm a collector...YAY!! (at that point I still had NO tarot decks...)

So I intentionally read with one deck but have more, which have been obtained as part of a collection. I'm not saying I'll never read with another (I'm thinking I probably will the Shadowscapes) but I am saying, I have every intention of continuing to get decks (albeit slowly -- family first etc) regardless of whether they strike me as being readable.

However, if for some odd reason I had to give up one or the other? I'd be strictly a reader. But I don't see why that would ever happen...LOL

~Yira

 

[moderndayruth]

Started weeks ago? Heck give it another 3 months and you will be scratching your head wondering how the heck you have so many, and did the tarot fairy come in the night when you were asleep or something

It used to be exclusively about reading for me... And than, accidentally...

 

[greatdane]

Hmmmm, Meta?

"collectors" as much as "accumulators." A rose by any other name....lol

I think it's kind of like having cats, a couple cool, 27 or 30 one is probably a bit of a crazy cat lady! Not that I think one can have too many decks (and besides how many, exactly, would too many be). I just think for a whole bunch of people on AE, that cool new deck is always beckoning. And if one is a collector, I sooo get that. I'm not big into collecting, except I like my books a lot (but do "prune" quite often and give to my local library to sell to support, because I have a GREAT library!). Even with that said, and even going through and thinking ok, I REALLY would like this deck more than that one, I still have my wish list. I have pretty specific tastes though, both for decks I love the art for and one I think I would like to read from,so it makes it a bit easier. Still doesn't mean it wouldn't be easy for me to break the bank! Reading all your posts about all the great decks IS like letting a small child lose in a candy store and expecting them not to grab at all the sweets!

GD

 

[rachelcat]

I've just been thinking about how many decks is too many. I remember maybe a year ago? I was trying to stay under 200. Well, right now (as of this minute!) I'm at 284, with many still on my wish list.

I'm toying with the idea of a firm cap at 365--ok 366. It would be silly to have more decks than days of the year! Or something . . .

(The only thing certain is the next 82 decks will get here quicker than I think possible . . . )

 

[greatdane]

Rachelcat....love the avatar!

I saw that deck and want it, definitely want for friends who are cat crazy (of course in the best possible sense!), even if they aren't into tarot. Great deck for cat fanciers and the hanging cat? My favorite.

Hey, I say as long as your number of decks don't go higher than you can count or store (if you have to, for instance, sleep on decks because they have completely overtaken your bed, or guests can't get in the door because of the stacks, it may be the universe saying it's time to prune down a bit!) you're under the limit! lol

 

[nisaba]

I've noticed that collecting seems such a big part of tarot to so many people here. So "Open Mike Night" - Since obviously one doesn't NEED to have a lot of decks to participate and read and get into tarot, does it come down to being more of a collector or more of a reader? Or are most readers collectors?

I find that many readers in the off-forum circles I move in tend to consider themselves innately superior to me in that they are "properly bonded" to one deck, and see that one deck as the bridge between the spirit world and them, whilst I, flitting from deck to deck, couldn't possibly have the spiritual connection they have <grin>. I am not resentful of this way of thinking at all.

Recently, there have been a number of threads about collecting vs. loyalty to a single or a few decks: one I started myself a few months ago entitled something like "But you already own a deck!" after someone saw me eagerly rip into a parcel with Tarot decks in it <smirk>, Gregory's revived thread about if it is or is not okay to collect if you don't read, and one a few weeks ago where I remember Le Fanu being witty and delightful, and talking about his lamentably sad habit of having more than one CD, book, Tarot deck, tee-shirt ...

So yes, this seems to be something us collectors want to justify to ourselves. No matter - I have immense fun justifying it, and I live without a twinge of guilt *to* justify! <cackle>

I'm not talking about a reader having 5-10 decks, I'm talking about people with more than, say 20-30.

<cackle> Stuart Kaplan once said that an *avid* collector (my emphasis) *might* have as many as twenty decks! So an avid collector could have less, and a collector could have far less.

Does it become more about the collecting than tarot? I have to say, I can see the addictive nature, I already have so many calling my name, and I just started weeks ago ))

Are you okay with it being more about the collecting than the Tarot?

I read, and I read with many of my decks. But many that I love and would never part with, read like the arse-end of a donkey-cart for me. I love having the choice when I read. I also love giving the client the choice between a "short-list" when the reading is for them - it makes them bond with what is said in a really special way if they put something extra into the reading.

I also love collecting. There is something nice about choosing my next purchases and putting them onto cyber-wish-lists, even if I am on a limited income and cannot predict when I might be able to afford them. Then there is the utter *thrill* of clicking on "BUY NOW", the breathless adrenalin of the wait, the trips to the post office, and the utter climax (I nearly used the O-word!) of actually receiving a parcel. These days, I am ripping them open even as I walk out the post office's door.

Then poring over them, getting to know them, if possible bagging or finding a silk for them ...

Decks that have sat in my collection untouched for weeks at a time are very far from unloved. I adore everything about them. It's about the collecting. And every time I collect another one, I have one more option for reading with. It's about the reading. The two are so tied up with one another that I really cannot separate them from each other.

Edited to add: Just to prove my point, in the last 24 hours, I have just done an on-line reading with a deck that I received in the last 48 hours, which I bought knowing full-well it was never going to be a favourite of mine. The reading seemed to work, from my perspective - haven't seen any feedback yet, but it's early days.

 

[gregory]

I think that there's people who could be described as something like "accidental collectors." I bet a lot of people here already know what I mean ..........

For example ....... A person starts off interested in reading tarot, and they buy a deck. Later they see other decks that are available and they think, oh gee that's pretty, and they buy a second deck. Then they see another deck they like and they buy that, too. And this trend continues until they own 4938753957 decks. And then they say, How did this happen?

They didn't mean to be a collector. But they ended up with a big collection because they kept buying decks that they found appealing.

I don't think that this is the same as being a true collector. A real collector buys things in a more deliberate way. For example, they may own several copies of the same deck because it's gone through several editions and each one has a different back.

Lots of us probably can't honestly be called "collectors" as much as "accumulators." And I think that I'm falling into the accumulator group myself........

Oh.

I think I are a accumulator. That is interesting..... and a very good point. But I don't yet have 4938753957 decks.

*gregory changes whole thought pattern*

 

[Le Fanu]

I like that vaguely guilty, justificatory tone I sometimes see. It amuses me; "I use tarot cards for their proper purpose, I read with them - thus use appropriately. Bond, do not flit" But - naturally - everyone does what they see fit and we are all part of rich and diverse community and that's how it should be!

As for me; shuffle, look at, visually mentalise whilst waiting for the bus, sit up in bed going through a favourite deck, lay out on the table to tell fortunes with, meditate, prop a Strength card over the desk for added Force during the day.. it's all using them (and god forbid actually playing Tarot with friends and winning bets)... Who cares what we do with them?

I just love collecting. I think I really ought to put the brakes on as it is getting slightly out of hand and I find that regardless of how many decks I buy because I love the artwork, it is the same 10-15 or so which I rotate ecstatically from one week to the next. Still I buy, still I crave, but in terms of one aspect of use - laying on the table and reading - I rotate among the same ones again & again & again...

I am a shameless proponant of the "not everyone has the temperament of intensely bonding with one deck" school of thought. It would kill me to do a One Deck Wonder or whatever the abbreviation is. I picture myself receiving all these gorgeous parcels and - stooping, wan and glum - putting them on the shelf with a "DO NOT TOUCH" sign. And life so short too! The horror!

 

[irisa]

I lived happily with 2 decks for a very long time then I discovered Aeclectic! This is soooo the worst place to be with one or two decks

Before I knew it I found myself alone at midnight with Amazon 1click ordering switched on and card in hand, then ebay, then Alida and on and on... But I love tarot and I love art so it was enevitable I suppose to err umm accumulate a few.

irisa

 

[nisaba]

A real collector buys things in a more deliberate way. For example, they may own several copies of the same deck because it's gone through several editions and each one has a different back.

That's certainly one type of collector, the discriminating collector. I do not agree that an undiscriminating collector is just an accumulator and not a proper collector, though. I discriminate. I collect decks, books, crystals, candlesticks, crappy relat - er scotch that, earrings. I don't collect saucepans, stamps, clothes, shoes, art (any more, I used to when I was younger), clocks (like my brother, who has 299 of them), or cameras. I'm *quite* discriminating. If I were just an accumulator, I'd accumulate everything that passed through my hands. I can divest myself of all sorts of stuff without a single twinge - not an accumulator.

I like that vaguely guilty, justificatory tone I sometimes see. It amuses me; "I use tarot cards for their proper purpose, I read with them - thus use appropriately. Bond, do not flit" But - naturally - everyone does what they see fit and we are all part of rich and diverse community and that's how it should be!

So, le Fanu. After re-reading Metafizzypop's post and deciding to answer, I remembered your known and stated love of the Thoth deck, and went and sticky-beaked at your collection list. The jaw dropped onto the floor hard enough to wake the cat. As far as I c an tell, some of those Thoths are identical, just in different packaging. It is *really* necessary to have them?

Please explain in less than 3,000 words, Thoth Deck Completionism to me, together with an estimation of whether your sub-collection of Thoths is complete yet. <hides grin>