Rumi Tarot

Creator(s): Nigel Jackson
Date: 2009
Country: USA
Publisher: US Games
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 978-0-7387-1168-3 
Type: RWS
Reference: aeclectic

Notes:
The Rumi Tarot has a traditional structure: 78 cards, traditional titles (with exception of the High Priestess, which becomes the Priestess, and Strength which becomes Fortitude), the four suits are entitled Swords, Cups, Staves and Coins, with the Court cards entitled King, Queen, Knight and Page. The minor arcana show a mix of both pip styling and small RWS-like scenes. 

The images are based on Rumi and Sufi beliefs, some of the features of the Rumi Tarot court cards are taken from the fifteenth-century cards of Mamluk design. Each card  has a verse from Rumi at the bottom.

The suits of the Minor Arcana symbolize the four Aristotelian elements and are corresponding to the alchemical mysteries of the Sufi path.  The basic positioning of the Trump figures and elements looks like in RWS Tarots, but everything from costume to architecture is Arabic.

The original paintings for the cards, done in tempera, are the same size as the cards themselves, also for the Minors, done in miniature portrait style.  The background color for the Major Arcana is blue, for the Minor Arcana and Court Cards it is green.

The box set comes with the 312 page companion book and a black organdy pouch. The book gives some history and background on Rumi and Sufism, offers a complete guide to the Tarot’s divinatory meanings, and also associates one of the 99 names of God with each card.

Dame Fortune's Wheel Tarot

Creator(s): Paul Huson
Date: 2009
Country: Italy
Publisher: Lo Scarabeo
Number of Cards: 79
ISBN: 978-07387-1529-2 
Type: Etteilla
Reference: artist's page


 

Notes:  
Paul Huson is the author of Mystical Origins of the Tarot. Dame Fortune's Wheel  is a historic style deck with scenic pips, but not a Tarot de Marseilles with RWS-illustrated minors. Huson mixed Marseilles inspired iconography with Etteilla's 18th century cartomantic tradition.There are no cabbalistic and few astrological associations on the cards. The Hanged Man, Death, Justice, and a few others, are derived from the 15th Century Gringoneur deck. Other images are related to medieval mystery plays such as the Dance of Death and to historical and allegorical figures like pope Joan and Judas Iscariot. Justice is VIII and Fortitude is XI, its The Female Pope and not the High Priestess, The Fool is unnumbered and Death unnamed.

The four cardinal virtues are also part of the Majors. Three of the cardinal virtues are named, the fourth, Prudence, is represented by trump XXI The World, where it is illustrated with an image based upon the 15th century Este design in which the figure of Prudence stands upon the material world holding mirror and snake. The backgrounds of the Majors are green and yellow. 

The elemental associations of the suits were acknowledged in the colour coding. Coins are green, Cups are a dark indigo, Swords are orange and Batons sky blue. Other than these thematic colours the elements seem to play little part in the design of the cards; instead the meaning and symbology follows almost entirely  Etteilla's  interpretations. The court cards (except the Knights) have -according to the French playing card tradition-  names and personalities from history or legend : Hector as Knave of Batons, Pallas as Queen of Swords etc. Kings and Queens are enthroned, Knights on horseback and Knaves are standing.

The backs are reversible. All card titles are in English (not as in other Lo Scarabeo decks titles in different languages) and the deck came with an additional  significator card.
  

Pamela Colman Smith Commemorative Set

Creator(s): A.E.Waite, Pamela Colman Smith
Date: 1910*, 2009
Country: USA
Publisher: US Games
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 978-1-57281-639-8   
Type: RWS
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. IV, pp. 484-491

Notes:
The Commemorative Set is a rather huge package. It included two books, the 78 cards and assorted extras, such as a little blue organza bag  for storing the deck, a fold out with tarot spreads as well as some postcards and pictures.

One book is Waite's "The Pictorial Key to the Tarot" except that the illustrations are not included (!).  The book is obviously a photographic reprint based upon either the 1910 or the 1922 edition; which one isn't mentioned. The missing pages with illustrations have forced a renumbering of the text pages, which makes this edition impossible to be used as a reference. 

The other book, "The Artwork and Times of Pamela Colman Smith" by Stuart R. Kaplan is a small biography. Pamela Colman Smith's life and family history are thoroughly covered and many colour illustrations of her art, most of them from Mr. Kaplan's own collection but also pieces from other sources are displayed throughout the book with notes that help the reader learn about the mediums that Colman-Smith worked with throughout her life (watercolor, ink, pencil, etc.) as well as all the different places where her work was featured (book illustrations,  magazines, etc.)

This deck is obviously a reprint of the same original `roses and lilies' deck from Kaplan's collection that was already used for the Original Rider Waite Tarot , but  the back pattern, which gave this edition its popular name, has disappeared to be substituted by one single `Irish rose' flanked by a stylized version of Smith's  signature. 

One major reproduction problem with this edition is that  the coloured background areas, particularly  the blue and grey areas are rather muddy and with larger grains than the original. 

El Tarot de los Druidas

Creator(s): Pierre Ripert, Severino Baraldi
Date: 2009
Country: Spain
Publisher: De Vecchi
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 978-84-315-4129-3 
Type: other
Reference: De Vecchi





 


Notes:
Pierre Ripert is a French author and journalist specializing in ancient history magazines. Severino Baraldi is a well known Italian comic illustrator and tarot artist. His true metier is the historical painting.

The numbering of the cards is : Magician to World as 1 to 21, the Fool is 22, Justice is 8 and Strength is 11.  The Minors are numbered 23 to 78 and have no suit signs. The Majors are associated with characters from celtic mythology and have no traditional titles.

The suits are Espadas (Swords) representing winter and the element of air, Copas (Cups) spring and the element of earth,  Bastos(Wands) summer and the element of fire and Oros (Coins) autumn and the element of water.

The cards are larger than usual ( 6 1/4" long and 3 1/4" wide). The packaging is typical De Vecchi, a  robust flip-top cardboard box containing the deck and the mini-book The book is Spanish only, but very informative. Pierre Ripert presents the Celtic society,  the Celtic pantheon and explains the Celtic Tree Alphabet

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.

The Tarot of Trees

Creator(s): Dana Driscoll
Date: 2009, 2012
Country: USA
Publisher: self-published
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 
Type: RWS
Reference: artist's page



   

Notes:
The cards are playing card size, professionally printed with a glossy finish. The paintings for the cards were created using watercolors, acrylics and inks, the artistic process is described on Driscoll's website.

The Tarot of Trees is an RWS deck with trees instead of people. There is not a single human in this deck and only four animals (a raven on the Death card, butterflies on the Page of Wands, a cat on the Queeen of Wands and squirrels on the Six of Pentacles).

The Major Arcana are standard with the exception of the Hanged Man, which has been changed to the Inverted Tree. Strength is numbered 8 and Justice is 11. The suits correspond to the four seasons (Wands - Summer, Cups - Spring, Swords -Autumn, Pentacles - Winter). Card backs have a tree design with branches top and bottom that are fully reversible.

 They come in a small purple flap box typical of card decks. It's available without LWB as a deck only or as set with a guidebook. Mine is the second edition deck only.

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.

Tarot of the Sweet Twilight

Creator(s): Christina Benintende
Date: 2009
Country: Italy
Publisher: Lo Scarabeo
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 978-0738718545 
Type: RWS
Reference: aeclectic

Notes: 
The Tarot of the Sweet Twilight is a beautifully illustrated deck that portrays themes of sadness, and. melancholy.

The deck follows the RWS pattern, there are 78 cards divided into trumps and four suits, Justice is numbered VIII and Strength is XI. The fully illustrated suits are named and numbered in the normal manner and the courts include the standard Knave, Knight, Queen and King.


Major Arcana cards use Roman Numerals while the pip cards use Arabic numbering. The backs are reversible.

Each card features the multi lingual titles favoured by Lo Scarabeo on an dark blue border.

The LWB by Barbara Moore, doesn’t provide keywords but rather “jumping off points” for personal interpretation.

Cruel Thing Tarot

Creator(s): Luciano Vecchio
Date: 2009
Country: Spain
Publisher: Heraclio Fournier
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN:   
Type: RWS
Reference: artist's page








Notes:
Cruel Thing is an illustrated novel popular in Spain and Latin America that also has become a hit in other European countries and increasingly in the U.S. as well. Comic book artist Luciano Vecchio combines anime and gothic influences. The Majors are characters and imagery from the comic series.

Like the comic series it is drawn with a strict three colour palette of black, white and red. It has titles in four different languages, the cards usually called page or knave are here, in their English translation, called Jacks, as used in playing card terminology. The knights are all male and the Jacks female apart from the suit of Wands in which the genders of these two cards are reversed. The pip cards are not illustrated.

8-bit Tarot

Creator(s): Indigo Kelleigh
Date:  2009
Country: USA
Publisher: self-published
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN:     
Type: RWS
Reference: artist's website

Notes:
Small  Waite-Smith based deck, with cards looking as if they had been designed for a video game. The images were rendered at a resolution of 88x152 pixels, using the same 256 colors that were the standard system palette on the Macintosh.

The cards come in a brown lidded cardboard box decorated with blocky 8-bit illustrations. They are business-card sized (2"x3.5") with rounded corners and UV-coating. There was a numbered edition of 100 as deck in progress and another unnumbered edition of 900 as complete deck with a different back design, mine is one of those.

Watchers

Creator(s): Beth Seilonen
Date: 2009
Country: USA
Publisher: self-published
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN:
Type: other
Reference: Beth Seilonen

Notes:
The Watcher's Tarot  is a limited edition majors only deck made of water color paintings.  The deck is available in two sizes (4 x 2 5/8 inches or 5.5 x 4 inches). My copy is the small size and has number 56. The cards are laminated with hand curved corners. This is a high end archival printing using a Canon 9000 photographers printer with Chromalife100 inks - color saturation to last at least 100 years.

The deck includes a title card and an interpretation card. The cards are housed inside a black drawstring bag, within a 2 piece, white, lidded cardboard box, with an ink drawing on the lid along with the artist's signature and the deck's number.

The cards have titles but no numbers, except Strength, which shows a number 8. The deck is featuring the Tree People with their spirit guides on the wind, earth and water.

Beth Seilonen: This deck came about one afternoon after hiking a local conservation park called Devil's Head which has a trail that leads down to the ocean. As I was playing around with the rocks, stacking them, my son asked me what they were, thinking that they looked like stone snowmen. "They're Watchers." I replied and from the stone figures, they transformed into tree people with 'watchers' (angels) watching over them.

Tarot Nusantara

Creator(s): Hisyam A. Fachri
Date: 2009
Country: Indonesia
Publisher: GAGAS Media
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 9797803568 
Type: RWS
Reference: artist's page

Notes:
“Nusantara” is an Old Javanese word meaning “archipelago”, thus this deck is quite literally the “Tarot of Indonesia”.  It has slim, elongated figures with multiple draped layers of heavily patterned, brightly coloured fabric.

Majors and Minors have Roman numerals at the top of the card Strength is 8   Justice is 11.  It has rounded corners, grainy glossy card varnish/laminate in front, the card backs are reversible and not varnished/laminated. The titles of the deck are in Bahasa Indonesian.The deck comes with a book called The Real Art of Tarot, also  printed in Bahasa Indonesian.

Tarot ng Daigdig sa Balintataw

Creator(s): Lynyrd-Jym Narciso
Date: 2009
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: Adam McLean
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN: 
Type: RWS
Reference:  Adam McLean

Notes:
The Tarot ng Daigdig sa Balintataw ( 'The World Inside the Pupil Tarot') is "Art Tarots Number 21" from Adam McLean's Artwork Tarot Series.

Narciso's art is anchored in strong underlying drawing, which he has coloured with subtle muted tones keyed to a tight palette. He uses a rather neat technique of altering the contrast in the line drawing so as to create a background, middle ground and foreground to the forms.

The Goth Tarot

Creator(s): Christina Fernandez (Winny)
Date: 2009
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: Adam McLean
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN: 
Type: RWS
Reference:  Adam McLean

Notes:
The Goth Tarot by the Spanish artist Winny is "Art Tarots Number 22" from Adam McLean's Artwork Tarot Series.

The cards are laminated with a glossy laminate. The backs are not reversible. Look here how the Artwork Tarots are made.

The deck deck came in a lidded box and is signed and numbered by the artist. I have copy #49 of 100.

Revelation Tarot

Creator(s): Jahne Hope-Williams
Date: 2009
Country: Australia
Publisher: self-published
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN: 
Type: other
Reference: artists page

Notes:
The Revelation Tarot is a large sized B&W majors only deck. It's made using the scraperboard, an art board with a chalky white ground and a top layer of black tinted chalk. Thus one scrapes away the top layer to show a white line.

The deck comes packed in a  lidded box with an organdy bag and a LWB. The lamination is horrible. It's got 1/4" borders all around the cards of the clear laminating sheet. The paper sandwiched between the lamination sheets and the cards curl up.

Paulina Tarot

Creator(s): Paulina Cassidy
Date: 2009
Country: USA
Publisher: US Games
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 978-1-57281-629-9
Type: RWS
Reference: aeclectic








Notes:
The “Paulina Tarot”, by artist Paulina Cassidy, is a traditional 78 card deck. There are two extra cards: one card carries information on the deck, while the second card carries information on the artist/author. The cards have the card number and title on the bottom of each. Strength is numbered eight and Justice is numbered eleven. The suits follow the standard: Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles.

The deck is printed on a high quality cardstock and measure 4 ¾” tall x 2 ¾” wide, with a very narrow, white border. The backs are reversible done in soft shades of beige and grey featuring beautiful birds in flight.

Pink Arcana

Creator(s): Beth Seilonen
Date: 2009
Country: USA
Publisher: self-published
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN:
Type: other
Reference: Beth Seilonen

Notes:
This is the Parent deck to the Jester's Tarot, which was made later on the same year. The images are different, as is the coloring, only the Nestor the jester hat remained.

According to the artist it is an edition of 16, because her grandmothers birthday was on February 16 and the deck was pink, because it was brought to life around valentines day.

Each card is cut to 2.5 by 3.5 inches, ACEO. There are 22 cards which have been numbered and signed within the edition run of 16. After signing they are all heat laminated, cut, corners curved and then placed into a box with a hand drawn image upon it. Mine is number 8.

Arcana Cats

Creator(s): Beth Seilonen
Date: 2009
Country: USA
Publisher: self-published
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN:
Type: other
Reference: Beth Seilonen 

Notes:
It's a limited edition of 50, mine is number 21.

The deck does not contain a LWB. It comes in a plain black drawstring pouch within a larger cardboard gift box which had an original art doodle drawn by the artist.

The card titles are handwritten, there are no numbers on the cards. On the card backs are also cats.

Tarot de Marseille Jean Dodal

Creator(s): Jean Dodal, Jean-Claude Flornoy
Date: 1701, 2009 
Country: France
Publisher: Jean-Claude Flornoy 
Number of cards: 78 
ISBN: 978-2-914820-10-3
Type: Marseilles  
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. IV, pp. 685-687







Notes:
Jean-Claude Flornoy's Dodal restoration is based upon the only two surviving decks from Dodal's workshop; one kept in Bibliotèque Nationale in Paris, another in a British Museum. A closer study convinced him, that they both are printed from the same blocks.

The declared purpose of the restoration was to get back as close to the original deck as possible therefore Flornoy doesn't make any alteration to these decks, apart from removing the effects and damage of natural aging. Lines that are frequently broken or apparently missing weren't completed or added. For example in “LE FOL”, there's no line to define the Fool's left buttock, the 9 of wands appears to have one too many caps or heads on the wands, while the 8 of swords  has one too few.

 In the booklet that accompanies the Dodal deck, Jean-Claude Flornoy himself, for example, suggests that the figure to the right in “LE SOLEIL” was intentionally drawn one-eyed, in order to symbolize the relationship of student to master. In “LA MAISON DIEV”,  there's a gap in the line defining the cranium of the tumbling figure to the left. Flornoy suggests that this was intentional, a symbol of the “opening” of the mind to cosmic energies.

There are also some oddities in the titles of the cards that weren't corrected: “LA PAPESSE” is labeled “LA PANCES” in the Dodal deck. “L'AMOUREUX”  is  “LA MOVREV,”  “L'ETOILE” is spelled “LE TOILLE”.

Several of the cards have the inscription `F.P.LE-TRANCE' (fait pour l'etranger) or `made for export'. The cards are large, 132x72 mm, and are printed on quality playing card board (in Bibliotéque Nationale's catalogue  the size of the original cards is given as 123x66 mm). The Two of Coins declares the deck published by I.Dodali in Lyon, but bears no date. Initials, traditionally those of the engraver, are usually printed on the Chariots shield but are absent on this deck. The booklet accompanying the deck is in English and French and gives additional information on the history of card-making.