Alchemist's Oracle

MandMaud

Glad to see this thread, though having read it, I'll wait until this deck is reprinted with a tolerable card stock. I have enough trouble shuffling as it is (with bad hands).

The Wild Unknown is one of my ONLY TWO beloved decks. I have a few but these two are all I feel I need, for the time being, I got both this year and it has felt like coming home. I easily made a decision to buy NOTHING MORE for a good long time! :rolleyes:

And I've never got on with an oracle, and never sought out an oracle deck but picked up a few that were bundled with tarot on eBay or very cheap in charity shops. I've browsed oracles but I do like the structure of tarot, prefer my tarot not to have extra suits and so forth. The "rules" are like the picture frame that turns a shapeless landscape into a masterpiece...

AND I've never really paired decks, but have recently thought about it and find I don't know where to start. I rarely use spreads, and my intuition doesn't tell me what to do with two decks together. But I want to use the Wild Unknown with the Tarot Illuminati because I intended them to work together (the minimalist with the hyperactive-colourful ;)) - and haven't got very far towards that yet.

A question about the Alchemist's Oracle's cards: I see that the card stock isn't anywhere near the TWU's, but what about size? Are they roughly the same height or width?

(Not that I'm allowed to buy any more decks of any kind for many months... at least until I sell something. :D)

Oh, more questions: there are some animal cards here - are they all without names (unlike 'Fun', 'Endings', 'Healing' that I can see) - meaning that the deck is composed of some cards with and some without writing? The only one I can see fully is the fox.
 

lark

A question about the Alchemist's Oracle's cards: I see that the card stock isn't anywhere near the TWU's, but what about size? Are they roughly the same height or width?

Oh, more questions: there are some animal cards here - are they all without names (unlike 'Fun', 'Endings', 'Healing' that I can see) - meaning that the deck is composed of some cards with and some without writing? The only one I can see fully is the fox.
There are key words on all of the cards, if you are curious about any of the words/picture I can tell you what they are.
The cards have a very thin white border...if you cut that border off the cards would be exactly the same size as the Wild Unknown.
So you know what I'm thinking...a little borderextomy and you could actually shuffle them together.
 

MandMaud

Thanks lark! I don't think I'm brave enough for borderectomy. :D So far, too, I haven't worked out how I would use two decks together so I don't know if I'd want to shuffle them together. But being that close in size, they'd be fine in the same spread... I'm thinking maybe each position having one card from each deck. But since there aren't many spreads I'm comfortable with, I'll have to ponder. (Call me awkward. :rolleyes:)

There's also the question whether I want to step into oracles at all. I'm a very slow-burning fuse with this kind of decision!

I have just seen that the fox card which I thought was "wordless" isn't shown in full (in that link in post #1). Then the other animals don't show their lower edge so I wondered if it was a theme, a mini-theme. Thanks for your replies. :)
 

The Happy Squirrel

Anyone know what the differences are between the first and second run of this deck?
 

pumog

What amazes me about this oracle is that no one feels there's anything wrong about how much the artist seems to have taken the style from the WU! When I first saw the pictures I also thought it had been produced by Kim Krans. The whole styling is virtually identical. The line around the edge, the lettering are both virtually identical. The style - very similar indeed. All in all if I was Kim Krans I would be deeply p'd about this oracle deck. Maybe she is! Personally I could never buy it, because the similarity makes me feel uncomfortable. The success of it is riding far too much on someone else's style, to my mind.
 

The Happy Squirrel

You could argue that the Prisma Visions is too much like Van Gogh and that the Wild Chagalian too like Chagal. Imitation is the highest form of compliment. It is the nature of art that they bleed to others and slowly evolve through imitations.
 

treelet

Anyone know what the differences are between the first and second run of this deck?

I'm curious as well. I'd like this deck as an oracle companion to TWU, sort of as a place to pull a final "advice" card for overall readings, but I'm worried about paying a steep price for insufficient card stock. I'd love to hear more impressions from people who've recently purchased the deck.
 

lark

I'm curious as well. I'd like this deck as an oracle companion to TWU, sort of as a place to pull a final "advice" card for overall readings, but I'm worried about paying a steep price for insufficient card stock. I'd love to hear more impressions from people who've recently purchased the deck.
I recently treated them with fanning powder and it has made them easier to shuffle...
If you have any Shiffer decks the card stock is like that thick and kind of sticky.
But the magician's fanning powder helped a lot.
 

Aster Breo

I recently treated them with fanning powder and it has made them easier to shuffle...
If you have any Shiffer decks the card stock is like that thick and kind of sticky.
But the magician's fanning powder helped a lot.

What is fanning powder?
 

lark

sorry double post.