Tarot of the Golden Sepent

Creator(s): Sebastian Haines
Date: 2013
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: Adam McLean
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN: 
Type: Thoth
Reference:  artist's website





Notes:
The Tarot of the Golden Serpent is a work in progress. This is an edition of the Majors only, but eventually it will become a full deck of 78 cards. The images for the cards are created as a series of oil paintings. The Major Arcana are 18x24, but the not yet existing Court Cards and Minors are planned as paintings on smaller canvases.

For each of the cards Sebastian Haines has worked out a set of images which he constructs within a symmetric structure. The symbolism is taken from alchemy and western ceremonial magic.

For the fool Hains took inspiration from a Gnostic amulet found in Budges Amulets and Talismans. The amulet depicts Harpocrates riding in a boat with the heads of Horus and Anubis at either end.

As in the Thoth deck, the empress is pregnant to emphasize the nature of Venus (ruling Taurus), but also express reproduction as a universal principle. She is chained to Taurus as an expression of materialization - energy becoming form. There is also a reference to the myth of Europa. On the Strength card the smoldering black shards were making a reference to the Qlippoth.

The Tarot of the Golden Serpent is a limited edition of 50 signed and numbered copies. The cardstock is thin, the backs are blank and the deck came in an old CD case instead of a box. There is no LWB.

Mythic Tarot

Creator(s): Juliet Sharman-Burke, Liz Greene, Tricia Newell
Date: 1986
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: Eddison-Sadd Edition
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN:  
Type: RWS
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. III, pp. 609, 612, 613




Notes: 
The Major Arcana depict Greek gods or demi-gods and keep the traditional names but are unnumbered.The suits carry the traditional designations of wands, cups, swords and pentacles. Each suit is based on a Greek myth and the cards from the suit tell the story as they progress from Ace through ten.

Cups tell the story of Psyche and Eros, Wands tell of Jason and the Golden Fleece, Swords tell the story of Orestes and The Curse of the House of Atreus and Pentacles tell of Daedalus. While each suit is tied to a story, we still find scenes that are similar to those in the Waite-Smith deck.

The deck seems to be published by many different publishers in 1986, there is an edition by Fireside mentioned on aeclectic, one by  Simon and Shuster (USA) mentioned by Kaplan, one by Century Hutchinson (UK) and mine by Eddison-Sadd. They all have slightly different backs, some black with gold embleme as mine, some purple or blue. Mine came with a hardcover book, some others came with a softcover book
.

Element Tarot

Creator(s): David Bourne, Stacy Mendoza
Date: 2002
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: Element Books
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 0-00-713696-X   
Type: RWS
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. IV, pp. 318



Notes:
The Element Tarot was designed to accompany the book Tarot: Your Destiny Revealed in the Secrets of the Cards. The artists stated their aim was "to create a set of strong archetypal images associated with dream states. The bold colors, together with the mystical and fairytale imagery, are used in order to unlock the deeply seated subconscious feelings we all hold within us from childhood".

Most of the court cards figures seem feminised, certainly androgynous at the very least. All the human figures have long hair, and there are a number of mermaid forms.The pip cards have no imagery.

The deck came in a violet box with a booklet, the backs are violet with a sun and moon design. The deck was first published as Dreamers Tarot by Anness Publishing in 1999 with a black and white pattern back design. There is also an edition as Mysteries of the Tarot kit put out by Selected Editions and an edition by Hermes House from 2002.

The Greater Mysteries Tarot

Creator(s): Robert Ellaby
Date: 2013
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: Adam McLean
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 
Type: other
Reference:  Adam McLean

Notes: 
Robert Ellaby is a British surrealist artist. He produced this deck between 1982 and 1984 as part of the Gareth Knight Christian Kabbalistic course.

Ellaby associated the ten pips of each suit with the ten sephiroth, from one (Kether) to 10 (Malkuth). He has chosen a motif for each sephirah and then explores these through the four elements that constitute the suits.

The artwork is pen drawings which are coloured with thin washes of water based pigments.

Tarot of the Sidhe (McLean Edition)

Creator(s): Emily Carding
Date: 2006
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: Adam McLean
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN: 
Type: other
Reference:  Adam McLean








Notes:
The Majors only edition of the Tarot of the Sidhe is "Art Tarots Number 5" from Adam McLean's Artwork Tarot Series. There also exists a mass market full 78-card version by Schiffer. 

These is a limited edition of 100 copies, mine is number 40. The borders are smaller than in the 78-card version, and it has a different back design.

The W. T. Horton Tarot

Creator(s): W.T. Horton, Koretaka Eguchi
Date: 2013
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: Adam McLean
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN:   
Type: RWS
Reference: Adam McLean





Notes:
Horton (1864-1919) was a mystic and an illustrator, and once belonged to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He also was  a friend of W. B. Yeats and Aubrey Beardsley, by whom his works were inspired.

Koretaka Eguchi collected books with illustrations by Horton and realised that many of these illustrations had imagery that paralleled conventional tarot, indeed the images fitted the tarot archetypes without requiring reshaping or collaging. Most of the images for the deck come from Horton’s book “The Way of the Soul”, which was printed in 1910 by William Rider and sons, London. At that time they were also printing Waite’s Pictorial Key to the Tarot and the Waite-Smith deck as well.

Fortuna's Wheel Tarot

Creator(s): Nigel Jackson
Date: 2007
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: Adam McLean
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN:   
Type: Mixed
Reference: Adam McLean








Notes:
Nigel Jackson is an artist, symbolist and esotericist known for his Medieval Enchantment Tarot produced in 2000.  His Fortuna's Wheel Tarot is in the same style with detailed pen drawing and luminous glowing colours.

My copy is number 88 of a limited, numbered, signed edition of 100.

A book for this deck is published seperately and can be found here.

Aleph Tarot

Creator(s): Rosetta Woolf, Aleph Kamal
Date: 1994, 2006
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: Adam McLean
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN: 
Type: Thoth
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol.IV, pp. 25,26







Notes:
This deck was printed in 1994 as an edition of 250 copies for the Musée Lilim in France. In Kaplan’s Encyclopedia it was called the Cathar Tarot and listed as unpublished . In 2006 Adam McLean obtained the remaining stock from the artist, reboxed the decks and sold them as No.9 in his Artwork Tarot Series.

The images for this Tarot were abstract watercolor paintings by Rosetta Woolf  based on the spiritual and cultural history of the Mediterranean and dedicated to the myth of Lilith and her children, known as the Lilim. The cards are a little longer ( 6.25 by 3.25 inches) than a standard size deck .

Oswald Wirth Tarot (McLean Edition)

Creator(s): Oswald Wirth, Adam McLean
Date: 2013
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: Adam McLean
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN:   
Type: Papus-Wirth
Reference: Adam McLean

Notes:
The Oswald Wirth Tarot was created in1889 as a majors only deck. It has a Marseilles foundation, with some changes based on the ideas of Eliphas Levi. These cards were used to illustrate Le Tarot des Bohemiens by Papus.

The deck was printed as line engravings then coloured by hand, as was usual with playing cards at that time when colour printing had not fully developed. The colouring of the cards was often messy, with the colour overflowing the lines and often not entirely filling the areas, because the colour was applied using stencils and relatively unskilled labour. Adam McLean has cleaned up the images, sensitively correcting these flaws, to produce a deck that reflected Wirth's original conception.

Javanese Folktales Tarot

Creator(s): Andhika Wijaya
Date: 2009
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: Adam McLean
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN: 
Type: other
Reference: artist's page









Notes:
Andhika Wijaya is living in Jakarta as a graphic designer and childrens book illustrator. The Javanese Folktales Tarot shows on each card an illustration related to a particular Javanese Folktale, which can be found on her website.

The cards are unnumbered. Each has an English title at the top and a Javanese title at the bottom. The deck came in a lidded gold cardboard box with a ribbon inside for lifting out the cards. The backs are reversible.

My copy is number 43 of a limited, numbered, signed edition of 100.

Marie-Claude Purro Tarot

Creator(s): Marie-Claude Purro
Date: 2006
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: Adam McLean
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN: 
Type: Marseilles
Reference: artist's page

Notes:
Marie-Claude Purro is a self-taught artist, who was born on in 1962 in Fribourg, Switzerland. 1993-1994 she lived in Portugal, where she painted the 22 major arcana of the Tarot, which she exhibited in the little town of Praia de Mira, as well as, upon her return to Switzerland, at the "Espace Galerie Placette" and at the "Café des Grand-Places".

The cards are 4 1/8" (10.5 cm) high * 3" (7.5 cm) wide. It is a borderless deck with non reversible backs.

Limited edition of 100 copies, mine is number 83.

The Norse Tarot

Creator(s): Clive Barrett
Date: 1989
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: The Aquarian Press
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 0-85030-732-5   
Type: RWS
Reference: artist's page 






Notes:
The Major Arcana represent the various stages of Balder's development and important turning points in his life. The first Majors show the appropriate Norse god or goddess for that card. From card 13 (Death) onwards the Majors show scenes from a particular myth.  Each card of the Major Arcana is also assigned a rune character.

The Court cards  have been changed slightly. The Page is now the Prince and the Knight has become the Princess. The number cards are RWS illustrated with scenes from the everyday life of the Norse people. Elements of the scene often break out of their frame into the surrounding intricate knotwork border. The coloring is done with watercolor.

The symbolism of the elements appears prominently in the Court cards. Flames are shown on those of the suit of Wands, water on those of Cups. The people illustrated on these cards are dressed in colours corresponding to their element; the Wands of fire are clothed in red, the Discs of earth in green or brown, and so forth.

I bought my edition direct from the author's page, it came without box or LWB but with an exclusive limited edition folder containing 5 previously unpublished cards. These 5 cards are early designs from the development of the Norse Tarot that did not feature in the final deck.

TCF Collaborative Deck 2012

Creator(s): Collaboration
Date: 2012
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: Tarot Collectors Forum
Number of Cards: 22+1
ISBN:   
Type: Mixed
Reference: Tarot Collectors Forum

 

Notes:

The TCF deck is not meant for sale, there is one deck for each participant, one deck for the forums host Adam McLean and one for the "Museo dei Tarocchi".

The deck has an extra "Happy Squirrel Card"

I did The Chariot and Justice.

 

Arto Tarot

Creator(s): Jane Estelle Trombley
Date: 2008
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: Adam McLean
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN: 
Type: RWS
Reference: artist's page

Notes:
The artist started working on the Minor Arcana but does not intend to complete the deck. Some Minors can be seen here .

The art is watercolour, the cards are brightly and harmoniously coloured, and bring new imagery to the standard tarot scenes.

The Arto Tarot is the 17th limited edition, majors-only deck from Adam McLean. It came in a lidded box and is signed and numbered by the artist. I have copy #24 of 100.

Lost Tarot

Creator(s): Dominic Murphy
Date: 2012
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: self-published
Number of Cards: 54
ISBN:     
Type: other
Reference: artist's page






Notes:
The artist called his deck  "Lost Tarot", because it has in addition to the conventional 22 Majors another 32 cards, which are according to Murphy the "lost tarot occult cards from the misty past" or " Strange Arcanas from the ancient legends of Atlantis".

Some of the additional cards show occult and alchemical symbology, others seem to be sort of "free associations" to the keyword "tarot" that came to the artists imagination. For example there is a "Kaplan" card, which may refer to Stuart Kaplan, author of the  Encyclopedia of Tarot.

The original paintings are watercolour on watercolour paper done in a  surrealistic style. The cards -size 64mm x 89mm- are digitally printed and came in a plastic box .

There is no LWB and there are no explanations to the cards on the artist's website.

The Stuckist Tarot

Creator(s): Elsa Dax, Ella Guru
Date: 2012
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: self-published
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN:     
Type: RWS
Reference: artist's page






Notes:
Stuckism is an art movement founded by 12 artists in London and Kent, England in 1999. Their aim was to advance new figurative painting  in opposition to the “conceptual” art. By 2012 the group had grown to an international art movement with over 200 groups in 50 countries.

Ella Guru writes: 
"I replaced the wand in the magician’s hand with a whip because my model, a real magician named Paul Nathan of San Francisco, is an expert at whip-cracking. He can pull a playing card out of your mouth with the crack of a bullwhip 10 meters away. And he likes to play with fire. "

Annie Zamero writes:
 "The Hermit’ Major Arcana is about seeking the truth,
so I have chosen Rupert Murdoch as my study because
he represents the antithesis of someone interested in the truth.
His Media Corporation has a history of manipulating the truth to suit
commercial purposes and maximize profits. "

The participating Stuckist Artists are:
Ella Guru (London, UK) - The Magician I
Jasmine Maddock (London, UK) - The High Priestess II
Peter Murphy (Leeds, UK) - The Empress III
Marketa Urbanova (Prague, Czeck Republic) - The Emperor IV
Joe Machine (Kent, UK) - The Hierophant V
Jonathon Coudrille (Cornwall, UK) - The Lovers VI
Odysseus Yakoumakis (Athens, Greece) - The Chariot VII
Eamon Everall (Aldershot, UK) - The Justice VIII
Annie Zamero (London, UK) – The Hermit IX
Artista Eli (Malaga, Spain) - The Wheel of Fortune X
Elsa Dax (Paris, France) - The Force XI
Philip Absalon (Norfolk, UK) - The Hanged man XII
Charles Thomson (Romford, UK) - Death XIII
Terry Marks (New-York, USA) - The Temperance XIIII
Alexis Hunter (New-Zealand, Auckland) - The Devil XV
Lapsking Hamed Dehnavi (Teheran, Iran) - The Tower XVI
Andrew Galbraith (Liverpool, UK) - The Star XVII
Jaroslav Valecka (Prague, Czech Republic) - The Moon XVIII
Virginia Andow (New-York, USA) - The Sun XIX
Farsam Sangini (Teheran, Iran) - The Judgement XX
Bill Lewis (Maidstone, UK) - The World XXI

Wicca Moon Tarot

Creator(s): Shirlee
Date: 2012
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: self-published
Number of Cards: 74
ISBN:     
Type:  other
Reference: artist's page
 

 Notes:
The Wicca Moon Tarot was created by Shirlee who runs the Wicca Moon shop in South London. The Courts are Page, Knight, and a combined King/Queen, hence four cards less than a traditional deck. There is no explanation for why they are combined, as there is no LWB with this deck, but Chloe at Inner Whispers suggests the marriage or balance of the mature aspects of the suit. The minors tend to be nature scenes with the number of cups, wands, pentacles or swords positioned in the cards. The backs are not reversible and show a black cat on a pumpkin.

There are no borders, the number and title is written somewhere in the card. Two suits (wands, cups)  have female knights and male pages, the other two (swords, pentacles) male knights and female pages. The majors have traditional titles except there is a "High Priest" instead of Hierophant.

There is no LWB but  a sheet  that gives associations for the majors and court cards (  number, futhark rune, ogham rune, meaning and planet). The cards -packaged in a cardboard box-, the sheet and a little semiprecious stone came within a floral design bag.

The Fialko Tarot

Creator(s): Jeff Fialko
Date: 2012
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: Adam McLean
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN:   
Type: Mixed
Reference: Adam McLean

Notes:
Jeff Fialko is an American artist and musician. The deck is painted with ink and watercolor in a sort of Marvel-Comic-Style. Some card images have more elements of RWS (Magician / High Priestess) others more of Marseilles (Sun / Lovers). The numbering with Justice at VII and Strength at XI is Marseilles. The cards are numbered but without title.

It is a signed and numbered limited edition of 50, mine is number 35. The Fialko Tarot is number 24 of Adam McLean's "Art Tarots" series. This deck is made cheaper than the earlier editions, the cards are without lamination, there are no card backs printed and it has no custom made but a transparent acetate box.