Why do people sell their deck collections?

[PAMUYA]

I do not have a collection of decks, just a few, most of them I do not use, they were given to me as gifts. I would either sell them or give them to someone who would actually use them. I hate to see these decks not used. But I would agree that they would need the money or have lost interest in tarot.

 

[tarotbear]

My decks & tarot books have been in storage so long I don't even know what I have anymore. However, as a collector - I am a Taurus, after all! - I have seriously considered that with this move that I really need to clear my stuff ... and that includes a lot of decks. Do I want to sell them? No. Do I need the money? Yes. Do I need to have things in storage I have to pay storage fees for and never use? No. Will I offer them to folks on AT? Probably.

 

[Rhinemaiden]

Why do people sell anything? Need for $$, changing interests, lack of space, downsizing, spousal disapproval? I can only speculate on why someone would sell a tarot collection...

But I can relate to STORAGE... the repository of STUFF. I finally (after more years than I will admit even among friends) got rid of storage... and all my possessions are now contained within my abode. I'm no longer nagged by the thought that one day I will need to "do something about it", and as a bonus, I have extra $$ every month to treat myself.

When I saw what I had in storage I was appalled... at myself for being such a pack rat. 95% of the stuff in storage I dumped.... which I should have done in the first place. What I took away with me was one metal box...20 inches by 14 inches by 13 inches... and what would fit inside, and that included a double bed handmade quilt. For me, storage is no longer a dirty little secret.

 

[karen0205]

I imagine there are many reasons someone would sell their collection, most of them have already been listed here. My personal experience is when I first found tarot, there were only a few decks available in my hometown. The RWS, the Gypsy Fortune Telling cards and regular playing cards. I never found any other decks until I was in a metaphysical store. I picked up the Tarot of a Moon Garden. I loved that deck, for a while. Then ebay happened. I found literally thousands of decks for sale at any given moment. I went a little overboard buying decks. I gradually sold a lot of those that didn't move me when I actually saw them in person. At one time I had over 400 decks in my personal collection.
My job situation changed, money became harder to get and I needed money. So, I started selling off the decks that I either didn't use or didn't connect with. There are some decks that I will never use but will never sell. I don't know why, there are just those decks. Most of the ones I have in my personal collection I use. I still buy and sell decks but I have a set of decks that are my personal collection and another set that are for trading/selling, etc.

I too have found that I want less 'stuff' in my life, decks included. I really try to keep my personal decks to a reasonable amount, whatever reasonable means, lol.

 

[Debra]

I'm intending to sell a bunch of tarot and oracle decks.
We want rain gutters.

 

[HearthCricket]

I sold off tons of my decks and with the exception of a handful, I am not sorry in the least. I love tarot and always will, but I felt very overwhelmed. I was always buying the latest fad or even just trying to keep it to decks I really seemed to connect to, whether for reading or not, but it took over my life. I also have a bad, bad habit of buying backups (4 or 5 of favourite decks), so lots of those were sold off as well. For readings I was always grabbing the same 30-50 decks (okay, I like variety!) but the rest just sat there. I always knew I would trim it down tremendously, around age 50 (which is now), but it moved up two years earlier for two specific reasons.

One was when our neighbour's house burned down. Within minutes they lost everything. I thought not only of the hoard of money my decks were worth and that I did not have them insured like some have done, but that some were rare and collectible and I just wanted the decks in loving hands and out of my home! The other reason was when a good friend passed away. Albeit he was much older than me and a friend of my parents, he was in good health, playing cards with his wife, having tea, went into the bathroom to brush his teeth and had a massive stroke and died right there. I'm still having a hard time dealing with the reality of it all. I realized that if anything happened to me my husband wouldn't have a clue as to how to sell my decks or what they were worth.

I can say I have about a dozen I wish I had kept and some of those have already been repurchased. But if someone offered me all my decks back I would say no! I am glad they have gone, love that I have cut it down to less than half, still have a nice variety, and every time I open my drawers to grab a deck I see only ones I truly love! I have decks that I want that have not come out yet and plenty I will pass up on. I guess I could best sum it up that I control my deck collecting now, my deck collection doesn't control me anymore!

 

[Chronata]

I had acquired a lot of decks that I really like, but just don't get much use. Once you make a deck, you kinda feel the need to read with it, even though most events, I still use my old standbys.

For me, I sell /sold off part of my collection because I really need the money, for things like food and rent.

 

[Chimera Dust]

I don't plan on selling or otherwise getting rid of any of my current decks. However, I can understand why other people do it. Sometimes they would rather keep their homes clutter-free, or need to move to another house or sell things because of money. Other times, they don't feel that strongly about a deck and don't mind selling it to use the money to buy something they would like. After all, maybe that deck will be loved a lot more by its new owner.

I suspect that if I had as many decks as some people here do (like 30+ decks), I wouldn't be opposed to selling those I didn't like so much and which I absolutely couldn't imagine myself using. The attachment you would feel to a new addition is probably different when you already have that many decks, so if you don't like the symbols or the artwork of a deck you've order or bought as a spur of the moment thing, it's not a big deal to sell it.

Different preferences, I suppose.

 

[Lourdez]

Very very interesting thank you all for replying. I am all for selling and clearing clutter I just sold all my baby stuff on gumtree but tarot decks gosh I couldn't do it, well not right now but you never know. Reading some of these replies it's something that could just hit me one day. So never say never.

I don't even use about 80 of my decks I must start rotating I must I must I must!

 

[weaver]

In my case, I rather inadvertently ended up with a Tarot deck "collection". I honestly wasn't trying to accumulate decks, but, rather, found myself attracted to and purchasing decks that I wanted to try on for size. After a while, I realized I had multiple shelves as well as a large dresser filled with beautiful decks that simply weren't ever being used by me. Thanks to gifting, selling on the trading section here on Aeclectic as well as selling on Amazon, I managed to find homes for all those beautiful decks that had been languishing in my home. As others have mentioned here, the clearing out of so much space felt good. That was several years ago. Since then, I have never regretted my decision to radically scale back the number of decks I own.