Dark Angels Tarot

Creator(s): Luca Russo
Date: 2010
Country: Italy
Publisher: Lo Scarabeo
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 978-0738720715   
Type: RWS
Reference: aeclectic










Notes:
"At the end of time, as the world spins slowly beneath a dying sun, the creator of that once glowing orb, broken by grief, turned his back upon his ruined creation. In opposition to their overlord the Dark Angels disobey his command and descend to walk the ravaged earth. Clothed in memories, garbed in flesh, they took their places upon the bitter landscape to partake in the last act of a cruel tragedy. Their self appointed task to succour the dying land and the last remnant of humanity, to lead them gently into the embrace of death and to cross with them the wasteland of their dreams. "


The art is computer generated figures to which an artistic overlay has been added. No words appear on the cards. 

The Major Arcana have Roman numerals, while each suit is denoted by its standard symbol at the bottom and a number at the top. The Court cards have a symbol -for example a horse head for the knights- plus the suit symbol. Besides the suit symbols, each set has a narrow ribbon border: the Major Arcana in gold, Wands in grey, Cups in red, Swords in blue and Coins in green.

The accompanying booklet is written by Aeclectic Tarot Forum member Lillie.

The Vampire Tarot

Creator(s): Robert M. Place
Date: 2009
Country: USA
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 978-0312361624   
Type: Other
Reference: aeclectic

Notes:

The primary theme for the trumps in this deck is Bram Stoker's Dracula. Stoker’s biographer, Barbara Belford, among others,  believes that Stoker was familiar with the Tarot and based many of the characters in Dracula on Tarot trumps. Stoker was friends with two founding members of the Golden Dawn, the occult society that introduced the Tarot to England and he was a life-long friend of Pamela Colman Smith, who is included as one of the queens.

The Major Arcana titles remain the same, with the exception of Mina (The High Priestess), The Brides (The Empress), The Count (The Emperor), Van Helsing (The Hierophant), The Wagon (The Chariot), Fate (The Wheel of Fortune), and The Madman (The Hanged Man). Justice is VIII, Strength is XI. The suit titles are: Stakes (Wands), Holy Water (Cups), Knives (Swords) and Garlic Flowers (Coins/Pentacles). The court card titles are King, Queen, Knight and Knave.

The Court cards depict historic individuals/fictional characters that were influential in developing the vampire myth in modern literature. The Kings are Sir Henry Irving (suit of Holy Water), Lord Byron (suit of Knives), Bram Stoker (suit of Garlic Flowers), and Franz Liszt (suit of Stakes); The Queens are Pamela Colman Smith (suit of Holy Water), Ellen Terry (suit of Knives), Florence Stoker (suit of Garlic Flowers), and Charlotte Stoker (the suit of Stakes); the Knights are Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (suit of Holy Water), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (suit of Knives), John Polidori (suit of Garlic Flowers), and Edgar Allen Poe (suit of Stakes); the Knaves are Carmilla (suit of Holy Water), the Night-Mare of Life-in-Death (suit of Knives), Lord Ruthren (suit of Garlic Flowers) and Ligeia (suit of Stakes).  

The Pips were illustrated with scenes derived from the story of Dracula, and imagery from vampire films and novels. On  the metal bottle in the suit of Holy Water is the monogram of Jesus engraved on the side .

The backs have a black border, surrounding a reversible “mask” of a vampire with fangs. The deck and box set came in a red cardboard box with a lift off top, that carries a picture of Dracula.

El Tarot del Inconsciente Anónimo

Creator(s): Leopoldo Maria Panero
Date: 1997
Country: Spain
Publisher: Valdemar
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN: 978-8477021940   
Type: Other
Reference: Wikipedia

Notes:
Leopoldo María Panero (born Madrid, 1948), is a Spanish poet, commonly placed in the Novísimos poetic group. He has experiences with drugs from alcohol to heroin, to which he would dedicate an impressive collection of poems in 1992. In the decade of the 70's he is admitted for the first time in a psychiatric hospital. Nevertheless, his constant internments do not prevent him from developing a copious bibliography not only as a poet, but as a translator, essayist and even narrator.

This is a deck and book set. Each card is accompanied by a poem, a description and an interpretation. The main themes that Panero explores are alchemy, magic, psychoanalysis, homosexuality, madness and death. 

Original Rider Waite Tarot

Creator(s): A.E.Waite, Pamela Colman Smith
Date: 1910*, 1999
Country: USA
Publisher: US Games / Rider
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 978-0712-658461   
Type: RWS
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. IV, pp. 484-491

Notes:

The first edition of the Rider-Waite Tarot appeared in December 1909 originally published by Rider and Sons, London. This publication came to an end during the Second World War when the printing plates were destroyed in the London Blitz. The original artwork had probably been split up for sale (it has never been unearthed again).US Games began publishing the deck in 1971. They now have the copyrights and patents on all the various permutations of the decks name. Rider and Sons are once again publishing their own edition by arrangement with U.S. Games.

 The Originial Rider Waite Tarot, published by US Games in 1999, is a facsimile of a very early edition Rider-Waite Tarot, which is part of Stuart R. Kaplan's collection. The back design is a blue and white pattern of roses and lilies. Other early editions feature the rose and lillie design in brown and red, or a crackled back. Waite described the rose as "the Mystic Rose, which signifies life".

There is an article from 1999 by Frank Jensen in the Manteia Courier, which explains how to identify different early editions of the Rider-Waite Tarot. The Original Rider Waite Tarot seems to be a facsimile of a so called Pamela-C variant from 1910.

Pamela-C versions have dotted tinting and a sun card with a heavy undulating line plus extra line (see picture upper right side near the number).

The cards of the facsimile edition from 1999 have a 1971 US Games copyright statement on each card. My copy was printed in Belgium and distributed by Rider and not by US Games direct. It came in a dark blue box with gold rose and lillie design.

The Original Rider-Waite Tarot differs from the Rider-Waite Tarot, as it has less saturated colours and a brownish hue, titles as drawn by Pamela Colman-Smith, and a more decorative back pattern.

Albano - Waite Tarot (US Games edition)

Creator(s): A.E.Waite, Pamela Colman Smith, Frankie Albano
Date: 1968, 1991
Country: USA
Publisher: US Games
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 978-0-88079-466-4   
Type: RWS
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. IV, p. 486

Notes:
The deck was originally published by Tarot Productions Inc., directed by Frankie Albano in 1968 and went out of print just a few years later.  U.S. Games Systems re-issued a facsimile deck from the original in 1991.

The Albano-Waite Tarot  is one of the many clones of the Rider Waite Smith deck. Like other clones, it has kept Pamela Colman Smith’s original drawings while changing the colors in a late 1960s style. The colors are bright with lots of purples and greens.

The background of the Minor Arcana are color-coded. The Cups feature light blue-green, the Wands are orange, the Pentacles lime green, and the Swords yellow.  The back is white with an abstract sun design in gold that is not reversible.

The images themselves are almost exactly the same as the standard issue RWS deck. One exception is the Temperance card, were an additional rainbow appears over the head of the angel Michael.

Ancient Tarot of Bologna

Creator(s): Giacomo Zoni
Date: 1780*, 2000
Country: Italy
Publisher: Lo Scarabeo
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 978-8883-950414   

Type: Marseilles
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. IV, pp. 672, 673

  

 

Notes:

The facsimile deck with the misleading title Ancient Tarot of Bologna is an elegantly drawn Marseilles tarot created by Giacomo Zoni in the city of Bologna and first published in ca 1780 for export to Lombardy. It is not a tarot with Bologna Pattern. 

Even though the deck is ceated in Italy by an Italian for Italians, the card names are in French. 

The first Lo Scarabeo edition from 1995 doesn't have the blue dots. The old edition is slimmer than the current LS decks. That's why they added the dots - to have the cards as wide as the standard LS are right now.

The woodcuts are simple and elegant, but the heavy-handed stencilled color obscures much of their detail.

Ancient Tarot of Lombardy

Creator(s): Ferdinando Gumppenberg
Date: 1810*, 2000
Country: Italy
Publisher: Lo Scarabeo
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 978-3927-808836   
Type: Milanese
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. IV, p. 674

Notes:

Lo Scarabeo issued the facsimile titled Antichi Tarocci Lombardi first in 1995 as a twenty-two card miniature deck with square corners and  back design with a green-gold pattern and later as a full seventy-eight-card deck. The full deck has rounded corners, the first edition has a white back with red pattern, the second edition from 2000, which I have, has backs in  blue and white with the Sun card image.

The original  for this facsimile used the same black plates (except for the Death card) as the original for  Solleones Tarocco Neoclassico Italiano. This is  evidenced by the same scratches and etching anomalies appearing in both reproductions. The Lo Scarabeo edition is printed on a coated playing-card type stock, while the Solleone edition was printed on uncoated stock.

In this edition two different tax stamps are on the Ace of Swords, they date from the Austrian restoration of Lombardy. The top one is for 25 centesimi and was in use from 1816 to 1818, the other is for 60 centesimi and was in use from 1818 to 1823.

The Ancient Tarot of Lombardy  recreates the original Lombardy design that was inspired by neoclassical art. As such, the Major Arcana titles are in Italian, while the Minor Arcana pips bear no titles.

Tarocco Neoclassico Italiano

Creator(s): Ferdinando Gumppenberg
Date: 1810*, 1984
Country: Italy
Publisher: Solleone
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN:   
Type: Milanese
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. II, pp. 346, 347

Notes:

This deck by Gumppenberg was printed from fine metal engraving plates and handcolored. The ace of swords carries the tax stamp valid from 1807 to 1816. The name of the cardmaker, Gumppenberg, appears on the ace of cups.

There are  two editions that reproduce the original deck. This one is titled Tarocco Neoclassico Italiano and was first published in 1980 as a limited edition of 1500 and 1984 as a second edition of 999 by Edizioni del Solleone under the direction of Vito Arienti. Mine is no. 642 of the second ed. 

The other edition, which is nearly identical, was printed in 1995 by Lo Scarabeo and titled Antichi Tarocchi Lombardi. The designs of  these two decks have a few minor variations, because the cards for the  reproductions are taken from two instances of the original designs: The Ace of sword in the Lo Scarabeo edition  has a different tax stamp and it has a slightly different illustration on the death card, all other cards are identical.

The Major Arcana have Roman numerals and italian titles, and the designs depart from traditional tarot images. The Magician (Il Bagattelliere) is depicted as a travelling salesman, carrying around his wares in a tray. The Lovers card differs from usual renditions by switching the roles of the man and the woman. In the Tower card the lightning stroke and the falling battlements are missing; the tower seems intact and so on.

The pip cards in the swords and battons are of the Spanish type and do not interlace. The designs on the faces of the cards have a repeating border design, a thin line of alternating oval and round shapes .

Tarot de Paris

Creator(s): Unknown
Date: 1625*, 1984
Country: France
Publisher: Grimaud
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN:   
Type: Mixed
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. III, pp. 410, 420







Notes:
The author of the Tarot de Paris is unknown. On the 2 and 4 of Coins, and the 2 and 3 of Cups appears an incomplete reference that reads ·FAICT·A·PARIS·PAR· ("made in Paris by"). There are empty spaces reserved for the name of the maker but it is  missing.

The original deck is housed in a collection at The Bibliothèque Nationale. Under the direction of André Dimanche it was reprinted by Grimaud in 1984 as a not numbered limited edition. Dimanche has written a historically detailed essay for this deck’s booklet.

The original images were woodblock printed and stencil colored. The checker pattern borders  simulate the technique used in Italy in which the back papers were folded over the edges of a card. The Parisian cardmaker also  used the Italian suits of cups, curved swords, cudgels and coins.

The trumps have French titles at the bottom, but their spelling is sometimes strange e.g. LE PANDUT for LE PENDU, LA TREMPANCE for LA TEMPERANCE. The Tarot de Paris follows the numbering of the Tarot de Marseilles. Some of the card designs are clearly related to the TdM, but many have unique imagery or are related to other decks. Some of the details in the facsimile version published by Grimaud is difficult to see clearly, because the colours used in the original have darkened obscuring some of the lines.

Unlike in any other tarot known, the Aces feature the suit sign on a large flag held by a lion (Coins), a deer (Cups), a griffon (Batons) and an unicorn (Swords). This was probably influenced by German hunting decks, which often  have very similar flags appearing on the 10s of all suits . Another oddity is, that they are named 'AR' instead of 'AS'.

Jeu de la Princesse Tarot

Creator(s): Johannes Trismegiste
Date: 1843*, 1876*, 1983
Country: France
Publisher: Dusserre
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN:  
Type: Etteilla
Reference: Tarot Garden
 





Notes:
The first version of this deck was designed 1843 by Lorambert under the pseudonym Johannes Trismegiste. It was published with Jules Laisne and appeared  in a book called L'Art de tirer les cartes, revelations completes sur les destinees au moyen des cartes et des tarots, d'apres les methodes les plus certaines (The Art of Rreading the Cards, complete instructions on fortune-telling by means of cards and tarots, according to the most reliable methods). It was reprinted unchanged in 1850.

In 1864 there appeared a new edition called Jeu de la Princesse Tarot. The designs of the cards remained the same, but some titles and inscriptions of the trumps and names of court cards and aces where changed to a more ancient Egyptian style to emphasize their supposed origins, e.g. number 3 was called Anubis. The production was continued by Wattillaux (1874-1908).

Dussere reprinted one of the Wattillaux Jeu de la Princesse Tarots from around 1876, which was preserved in the National Library in Paris as photoreproduction. A modified version of this deck has been reproduced in 1996 by Lo Scarabeo as the Esoteric Ancient Tarots.

The cards were numbered consecutively from 1 to 78, following the system started by Etteilla to emphasize that the cards were pages of an ancient book. The cards have a central image surrounded by a large border with two lines of text at the bottom. The first is the card title the second line it’s divinatory meaning. At the top of the card is a reversed printed line with the reversed divinatory meaning.

In spite of their titles the cards do not portray convincing Egyptian iconography instead they incorporate symbology from such sources as Genesis and the Hermetic creation myths of The Divine Pymander.

Ironwing Tarot

Creator(s): Lorena Babcock Moore
Date: 2004
Country: USA
Publisher: self-published
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN:  
Type: other
Reference: artist's page 



 

Notes:
Lorena B. Moore is a blacksmith/metalworker who lives in Tucson, Arizona. Her Ironwing Tarot celebrates the ancient art of blacksmithing and its connection with shamanism. The deck is inspired by nature, geology and metallurgy, and the sacred Black Metal itself.

The Ironwing deck consists of slightly renamed Majors as follows: The Lodestone, The Magician, Red Earth, The Forge, The Anvil, Tradition, Connection, The Road, Crystallization, The Hermit, The Wheel, Strength, Trance, Death, Quench, Molten Iron, The Tower, The Star, The Moon, The Sun, The Furnace and The World. The Majors depict iron geology, blacksmithing tools, and metal refining processes. Vignettes of the shaman’s initiatory experience also appear in many of the cards.

The Minor Arcana  beginning with Ore (Ace) and then proceeding from Two to Ten. The suits are Spikes (fire) which refer to thorns, spines, twigs and resins, Coils (water) refering to shells, flowers and  beach find, Blades(air), which refer to feathers, leaves, herbs and paper, while Bells (earth) refering to roots, gnarled wood, fungi and seeds.

The Face Cards, or Courts, in this deck have been appropriately renamed Spirit Guides, and are called Apprentice (Page), Gatemaker (Knight), Madrone (Queen) and Shaman (King). All are female and depict “four idealized stages of a woman’s growth in the skills and mysteries of the smith’s craft and the shaman’s calling.”


The Art is black and white ink scratchboard drawings. Major Arcana accented with three shades of red ochre, a natural earth pigment and iron ore. The Card backs are non-reversible. The card dimensions are 2.5" x 4.6", printed on white stock with a matte finish. This size is a little wider and shorter than a standard deck.

The deck comes with a spiral bound book, that includes, beyond card descriptions, short essays on iron geology and mythology, blacksmithing and Shamanism.The book is available for free download as pdf  on the artist' website.

El Tarot de las Mafias

Creator(s): Alice Bensimon, Dona Hricovini
Date: 2012
Country: Spain
Publisher: De Vecchi
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 978-84-315-5184-1 
Type: other
Reference: De Vecchi 







Notes:
El Tarot de las Mafias is a dark deck issued by De Vecchi Barcelona. The artwork is pen and ink washes.

The deck came in a box with compartments for the 78 cards and a 157 pages explanatory booklet. Booklet and the card titles are Spanish only.

The Minors are fully illustrated, the suits have color coded titles and were renamed La Mafia Italiana / red, La Mafia Norteamericana / green, La Mafia del Este / blue, La Mafia Asiatica / yellow. The court cards are Rey, Reina, Caballo and Sota. 

The images on the Majors  departs considerably from the established tarot, all Majors are renamed. The unnumbered Fool became Omerta,  1 La Proteccion, 2 La Madre, 3 La Mujer, 4 El Reclutamiento, 5 Los Valores, 6 El Doble Juego, 7 El Hombre De Honor, 8 El Antimafia, 9  El Professor, 10 La Devolucion Del Golpe, 11 El Tatuado, 12 La Puesta En Cuarentena, 13 El Escondite, 14 Las Esposas, 15 El Arrepentido, 16 La Venganza, 17 El Consejero, 18 El Torturado, 19 El Jaque Mate, 20 El Gran Perdon, 21 El Capo.

Darkana Tarot

Creator(s): Janden Hale (alias Dan Donche)
Date: 2012
Country: USA
Publisher: self published
Number of Cards: 78+1
ISBN: 
Type: other
Reference: artist's page






Notes:
The creator Janden Hale is Dan Donche, well known for his hugely popular Inappropriate Tarot Readings. His Darkana Tarot Deck combines a modern grunge style with non-traditional tarot symbolism. It is primarily a black and white deck, with pops of color throughout.

The Darkana has an additional card, XXII The BadAs and was packaged in a cardboard  tuck box. It doesn't come with a LWB, but has keywords in the bottom left hand corner of each card.

Savage Tarot II

Creator(s): MichelleX
Date: 2012
Country: USA
Publisher: self published
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 
Type: other
Reference: artist's page




 


Notes:
MichelleX works as a freelance web designer/developer, artist and curator in St. Louis.

The deck has a standard structure - 22 major arcana numbered from to 21 and minor arcana suits of Pentacles, Wands, Swords and Cups. Its imagery is dark in both theme and colouring.

In the minor arcana suits,  Pentacles representing Earth and are softer and more sexual explicit  than the other suits. The Cups suit is Water and represents emotions. Wands representing Fire and are illustrated by firepower (guns). Several cards show suicide or killing.  The Swords feature blades and deal with mental issues and anguish.

It’s important to note that this deck is not identical to the limited edition release from 2005. The first edition was limited to 100 and came with a leather bound  booklet in a silver tin box, this edition is unlimited, with two  LWB (one for the Majors, one for the Minors) and  the cards are packaged in a tuck box.