French Tarot - Jeu de 78 Cartes

Creator(s): Unknown
Date:  1982-1993
Country: Switzerland
Publisher: AGM
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN:      
Type: French Genre Tarock
Reference: 

Notes:
The French game of tarot, also jeu de tarot, is a trick-taking card game for four players using the traditional 78-card tarot deck. The game is enjoyed throughout France and also known in French-speaking Canada. French tarot is one of the older forms of tarot and has remained popular for centuries. 

This Genre Tarock is an example of the standard Jeu de Tarot as played in France and has 78 cards: four French suits of hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades, each suit has a full complement of 4 picture and 10 numeral cards. 22 trumps: the Sküs (which looks a little like a joker) and 21 cards marked with large numbers from 21 down to 1.The trump cards depict double-ended folk scenes.

Fantod Pack

Creator(s): Edward Gorey
Date: 1969, 1995, 2007
Country: USA
Publisher: Pomegranate
Number of Cards: 20
ISBN:   
Type: non-tarot
Reference: aeclectic








Notes:
 Edward Gorey is an illustrator and artist known for his morbid sense of humor. Originally published in Esquire magazine in the sixties,  there was an unauthorized version of the deck printed back in 1969, and then an authorized limited edition of 776 copies (750 numbered, and 26 lettered) in 1995. The current 2007 edition, which I have, is unlimited.

The artwork on the cards and the cover of the booklet are the classic Gorey style of finelydetailed pen-and-ink work. The card backs and the booklet feature a strange little creature known as  'Figbash'.

Card Titles : The Ladder, The Child, The Limb, The Yellow Bird, The Stones, The Effigy, The Insects, The Plant, The Waltzing Mouse, The Urn, The Feather, The Bundle, The Sea, The Ecorche, The Bottle, The Burning Head, The Blue Dog, The Ancestor, The Tunnel, Untitled 

The Fantod Pack comes with a booklet by one "Madame Groeda Wyrde" (anagrams areanother Gorey favorite), giving instructions for how to read with the deck. The booklet itself is quite funny, with instructions such as the following:

"Interpretation must always depend on the character and circumstances of the person consulting the pack. What might portend a wipe-out for a teenage hotdogger from Yokohama, might warn an octogenarian spinster in Minot, North Dakota, of a fall in the bathtub, though, of course, the results might come to much the same thing. "

Tarot Azteque

Creator(s): Jane Denant, G. Martin
Date: 1986
Country: Austria
Publisher: Piatnik
Number of Cards: 53
ISBN: 
Type: non-tarot
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. III, pp. 85,89

Notes:
This deck is not a tarot. It has 52 numbered cards and one unnumbered card and a card that has on it the signature of the attache of Montezuma. The cards were inspired by Azteque religion and manuscripts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

There are four series of numbered cards. The first eight cards, bordered in blue and brown, are for the eight social classes. Cards 9 through 14 and the unnumbered card, are bordered in yellow and brown and indicate the planetary goddesses of the Azteque. The cards 15 through 34, bordered in green and brown, depict the 20 figures found in Mexico on a carved stone which is called "The Azteque Calendar". The last  eighteen cards are bordered in ocher and brown correspond to eighteen periods of the year.

The balls at the bottom of the cards count up to thirteen, which is the number of days in the lunar cycle, and then start over at one.

The Cards of U'ut

Creator(s): Ellis Nadler
Date: 2011
Country: United Kingdom
Publisher: self-published
Number of Cards: 37
ISBN:
Type: non-tarot
Reference: Ellis Nadler





Notes:
"The Cards of U'ut", formerly known as "The Cards of Wu", is a deck of 37 cards, size 21 cm x 15 cm, packed in a plain aluminium box, with a 48 page booklet and a numbered certificate signed by the artist.

For this limited edition of 100 sets the originial woodcuts were scanned an digitally coloured.

In the LWB the author claims this to be a "unique deck of tarot cards", the cards are described as "the first arcana" and "a second arcana" of 41 cards is currently in production. For each card there is a little explanatory poem in the LWB.

The cards are awesome, its great artwork and maybe they can be used for divination as described in the LWB, but they are not tarot and they won't become tarot when the "second arcana" completes the deck to 78 cards.

Symbolon

Creator(s): Peter Orban, Ingrid Zinnel, Thea Weller
Date: 1993, reprint 2011
Country: Switzerland
Publisher: AGM
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 978-3-905017-17-5
Type: non-tarot
Reference: Aeclectic





Notes:
The Symbolon is not a Tarot deck. There are a number of cards that bear a resemblance to particular cards of the Tarot. But even though there are 78 cards in the Symbolon deck, it's still not a deck of Tarot cards.

There are no major and minor arcana cards; there are no court cards, nor are there the traditional pip cards you see in Tarot that are numbered from Ace to Ten. In fact, these cards have no numbering, titles, or labels on them at all.

The cards feature spiritual and mythological characters intermixed with characters that seem to be from various periods in history (Renaissance, Victorian era, etc.). Astrological associations are featured as symbols on each card. In the LWB it is considered a "game of remembrance", the purpose of the deck is to recreate memories from past lives

Jugenstil Tarock

Creator(s): Ditha Moser 
Date: 1906*, 1982
Country: Austria
Publisher: Glanz, Piatnik
Number of Cards: 54
ISBN: 3-900-300-07-0
Type: non-tarot, tarock
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. I, p. 317










Notes:
The original edition of these cards appeared in 1906. The designs were by Ditha Moser, Albert Berger was the printer and Josef Glanz was responsible for the production of the cards. It is unclear how many copies were printed: some sources give the number as 300, others as only 100. Around 1910 Piatnik took over the company of Josef Glanz together with its remainder stocks of playing cards. In 1970 when a catalogue was made of Piatniks archives they duscovered unsold copies, which prompted the present editor to reprint the Jugendstil Tarock and issue them 1972 in limited edition.

 A second limited edition was published in 1982.
The number of copies each edition is undocumented. Mine is number 2850 of the 1982 edition. Many of the cards show Ditha Moser's childhood impressions, for instance wooden toy figures from the Erzgebirge. Combined with these are traditional tarock motifs.

The court cards of Hearts are dressed in the fashion of the age of Luis XVI, the Diamond Court cards are clad in ancient Egyptian style, the Spades court cards are wearing clothes which belong to the Edda sagas and all the Club court cards appear as crusading knights.

Tarot Hindou de Madame Indira

Creator(s): Colette Silvestre-Haeberle, Madame Indira
Date: 1993
Country: France
Publisher: Grimaud
Number of Cards: 30
ISBN:
Type: non-tarot
Reference: Le Palais du Tarot








Notes:

The Tarot Hindou consist of 30 cards with no tatot-like structure. It claims to be derived from ancient knowledge epistomized by the Mahabbarata.

The LWB advises three ways to draw the cards: The "Sacred Nine", the "Six Incarnations" and the "Magical Circles". Despite being named "Tarot" it has nothing to do with tarot at all.