Victorian Romantic Tarot
Victorian art
78 cards plus a title card and a LWB, in a standard cardboard tuck box.
The cards measure 12.9 cm tall x 7.9 cm wide (5 inches tall x 3 inches wide).
The card stock is high quality, flexible, with a matte finish.
Backs are reversible.
The majors are unnumbered.
The minors are fully scenic and largely follow the RWS conventions.
Suits are Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles. Courts are Page, Knight, Queen, and King.
Mahony, Karen
Ukolov, Alex
<a href="http://www.victorianromantic.com/">http://www.victorianromantic.com/</a>
Magic Realist Press
2006
78 cards
English
RWS
1-905572-03-4
Visconti-Sforza Tarot
Visconti, Historical
78 cards plus two advertising cards, with an unusually informative LWB, in a cardboard tuck box with a cut out window in the front to let part of the Magician card show through.
The cards are oversized, measuring 17.5 cm tall x 9 cm wide.
This is an un-restored printing of the Pierpont Morgan-Bergamo Visconti-Sforza tarot cards, originally painted by Bonifacio Bembo.
Stuart Kaplan authored the LWB.
My copy is from the 1984 printing, not the original 1975 printing.
The LWB notes that the Devil, Tower, Star, and Moon cards were missing from the original deck and have been recreated; however, there's no artist attribution for the recreated cards.
As is the case with any version of the Visconti, the minors are illustrated, but not scenic.
Justice is 8 and Strength is 11.
The backs are plain maroon with no pattern, and thus completely reversible.
Bembo, Bonifacio
U.S. Games, United States
USG
1984
78 cards
English and Italian
Visconti
0-913866-06-7
Visconti Gold Tarot
Visconti Tarots
I Tarocchi Visconti
Tarots des Visconti
Visconti, Historical
78 cards plus a title card and 2 advertising cards in a standard cardboard tuck box. Part of the Tarocchi d'Arte series.
Cards measure 12 cm tall x 6.6 cm wide.
This was sold as part of a box set with a companion book. Hence, the tuck box containing the cards is not marked with an ISBN or a date, and there is no LWB (because the companion book removes the need for one).
This is the 2002 release of this deck. The earlier release (1998) had different versions of the Tower and Devil cards. The original art was painted by Bonifacio Bembo, but some cards are missing from the original deck -- hence, Atanassov painted his own versions of them when restoring the art for this edition.
A stunningly gorgeous feature of this deck is the gold foil stamping, which makes the cards absolutely gleam in the light. The scans don't even begin to capture the beauty of the gold foil.
Aside from the gold foil stamping, the cards have a matte finish and the card stock is nicely flexible. (Though I wouldn't want to shuffle these cards, as I don't want to damage the foil.)
The backs are reversible.
The minors are beautifully illustrated, though not at all scenic.
Suits (in English) are Pentacles, Swords, Chalices, and Wands. (The Pentacles suit is named differently in the other languages that appear on the cards.) Courts (in English) are Knave, Knight, Queen, and King.
Justice is 8 and Strength is 11.
There's an interesting typographical error on the companion book cover: Renaissance is spelled "Reaissance" (as you can see in the picture).
The book is written by Giordano Berti and Tiberio Gonard.
Atanassov, Atanas A. (restoration of original historical images)
Bembo, Bonafacio (original paintings)
<a href="http://www.tarotpassages.com/visconti-mh.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">http://www.tarotpassages.com/visconti-mh.htm</a><br /><br />Review of the earlier printing, showing the earlier version of Atanassov's Tower card: <a href="http://pasteboardmasquerade.com/Reviews/visconti.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">http://pasteboardmasquerade.com/Reviews/visconti.html</a>
Lo Scarabeo, Italy
2002
78 cards
Multi-lingual
Visconti
0-7387-0293-5 (deck and book set)
88-8395-285-8 (book)
Vision Tarot
Photography
78 cards plus a title card and an informational card, with a LWB, in a standard cardboard tuck box.
Cards measure 12 cm tall x 7 cm wide.
Backs are reversible.
The card stock has a matte finish and is semi-flexible.
The art style is that of digitally enhanced photography. Some of the cards are quite dark, though, obscuring the details. Also, in some cases the minors are very similar from card to card -- especially in the case of the suit of Staves.
The minors are plain -- simple arrangements of suit symbols with decorative borders.
Suits are Coins, Staves, Cups, and Swords. Courts are Page, Knight, Queen, and King.
Justice is 8 and Strength is 11.
Thompson, Tim
Carta Mundi, Belgium
1995
78 cards
English and French
Plain pips
Tarot Vampire
Vampires, Fantasy
78 cards. No box or LWB.
Cards are slightly larger than average, measuring 11.2 cm tall x 7.9 cm wide.
I have not yet unwrapped my copy because I don't have a good container for it on hand, and haven't yet delved into my stash of drawstring bags.
I'll come back and add additional details when I eventually unwrap the deck :).
Ball, Adam
Castle Dark, Australia
2006
78 cards
English
Other
978-0-9775907-4-2
Tarot of the Master
I Naibi di Giovanni Vacchetta
Tarocchi del Maestro
Meister-Tarot
Tarot del Maestro
Tarot du Maître
Vachetta
Historical
78 cards plus a title card and an advertising card. Packaged with an instructional foldout, in a standard cardboard tuck box.
Cards are 12 cm tall x 6.5 cm wide.
Card stock is durable yet flexible, with a smooth matte finish.
Backs are non-reversible.
Part of the Tarocchi d'Arte series by Lo Scarabeo.
Strengh (La Forza) is 11 and Justice (La Guistisia) is 8.
Suits are Denari (coins), Spade (swords), Coppe (cups), and Bastoni (batons or wands).
Courts are Fante, Caval, Regina, and Re.
The card titles are part of the original border art, and are in Italian. In addition to the titles, keywords in five languages appear along the left-hand border of each card. These were added specifically for this edition, and were not part of the original I Naibi di Giovanni Vacchetta tarot.
Giovanni Vacchetta created the original art for this deck in 1893 in Turin. The colors -- complete with age spots -- for this 2002 edition were done by Michela Gaudenzi.
The majors and court cards are fully scenic. The minor arcana are beautifully and richly illustrated, and far more detailed than the minors of a TdM deck -- however, they do not feature people, and are not scenic.
The majors show some definite TdM influences, but this really isn't a TdM -- it's unique and, in my opinion, truly amazing and worth seeking out by any collector.
Vacchetta, Giovanni (original art)
Gaudenzi, Michela (coloring)
Lo Scarabeo
2002
78 cards
Italian
Multi-lingual
Historical
0-7387-0236-6
Tarot of Vampyres
Vampires
78 cards with a 312 page softcover companion book, packaged in a large format shelf box, with a plain inner white box to contain the cards. The white box, however, is larger than the cards and does not make good permanent storage -- this is typical of Llewellyn tarot sets.
As is typical of Llewellyn tarot sets, there is no title card.
Cards are 11.7 cm tall x 7 cm wide.
Card backs are not quite reversible, as it is possible to tell when the rose is upright or upside down.
The art style is detailed, expressive, clear, and quite colorful (for a gothic deck). It is the most beautiful and readable vampire-themed deck I've seen so far.
Retail price when new was $28.95.
Daniels, Ian
Llwellyn
2010
Phatasmagoria (companion book)
78 cards
English
Other
9780738711911