A few Tarot decks from my collection.

I keep some of my favorite decks in this antique reliquary given to me by a friend. The decks pictured here are mostly Marseille-style Tarots. The cards in the upper right of the open case with XIII. LA MORT on top are the trumps from my first deck, The "Swiss" Deck, that I've had since I was probably 7 or 8 years old. Somewhere back then I read that the trumps were the only cards needed so I discarded the others. The decks pictured here constitute probably one-fifth of my Tarot collection.

Pictured above, right to left from top to bottom: The B.O.T.A. Deck, spare cards from the Flornoy restoration of the Jean Dodal deck, trumps from the IJJ Swiss Deck (all of the above are resting on a box containing the reproduction of the original Rider-Waite-Smith deck and the Hermetic Tarot deck, beneath that (unseen in photo) is the Giant Rider-Waite deck, below these are the mini-deck of Claude Burdel, the mini-deck of the Camoin-Jodorowsky "restoration" Marseille deck, in the brown paper envelope is a reproduction of the Nicholas Conver Marseille deck and the Angelo Valla Marseille deck (both 18th century), below that in the burgundy bag is the 1930's Paul Marteau Marseille Tarot published by Grimaud from the early 1960's with the thick card stock, the Aleister Crowley "Book of Thoth" deck, a Spanish reproduction of another 18th century Marseille deck, the Golden Dawn Tarot deck, a reproduction of the Tarot Besancon (18th century) deck, a poorly-recolored version of the 18th century Claude Burdel Marseille deck, the University Books printing of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck from the 60's (that I have also had since I was a child, below that are the Kris Hadar Marseille restoration deck, the Flornoy restoration of the 18th century Jean Dodal Marseille deck, the very interesting and unusual 18th century Jacques Veiville deck (one of my all-time favorites), the Flornoy restoration of the 17th century Jean Noblet Marseille Tarot, the full-size Camoin-Jodorowsky Marseille Tarot (probably my favorite modern "restoration" effort), and the 18th century Ignaz Krebs Marseille deck (another favorite).

Originally posted on COSMODROMIUM Monday, August 22, 2011