My views on the early Rider decks and the article of Pietro Alligo.

Elven said:

Just my 2cents worth -
First is the name of the artist PAM -
then the deck initial R&L,A,B,C,D etc-
then the type of back eg: CR=crackle,
then the box colour eg: BLUE, BURG, etc
and any date would be eg: d1919, d1944, nd= 'No Date' mark ...

so to represent a Pam A deck with a crackled back in a blue box printed in 1920
PAM A CR BLUE d1920

Click to expand...

It is a good system. Although in many cases the date or even the box is not really known. And if we are writing about the decks, it is not always handy to have such a long code or name. I do think that in general we should use the name of the artist first: PAM-
and then add the deck initial. And there we can just use R&L, A, B, C, D. I would use the A for just the crackled back deck, as I stated before.

Pam Sisters staying at my house

Pam-A in RED/BUR two-part box, with 1910 book

Pam-B in RED box (smaller than A), with "NEW EDITION" book with no date

Pam-C in BLUE/GREEN slipcase, with no book

Pam-D in RED/BUR two-part box (the same size as A), with "NEW EDITION" book with date 1920

truelighth said:

In retrospect I think there maybe have been two Pam-D with box and book on auction. I asked Frank for pictures of the auction (I lost mine in a computer crash) and the information he send was different then the one I had on file.

I think this one is more familiar to you, Kenji :
http://www.ebay.com/itm/14075652105...acat=0&_nkw=140756521055&_rdc=1#ht_754wt_1200

It says the Page of Cups has a tear, so that must have been the one you bought.
And I actually gave the additional information to this seller, so I don't know how I could have forgotten about it... LOL!

Click to expand...

You guessed right

My thanks to Kenji and Rodney for the information. I have gotten some more info on early RWS decks by e-mail too. I am still collecting. But when I have a more complete list, I probably will post a list of the decks and boxes they come in, without owners.

And Roppo, that is so interesting! I have no access to the Occult Review at all. I only know this from articles that others have written. I personally would love to see the other cards published too.

Another Pam-A set in Japan

Hello truelighth,

Mr Yasuhiko Hirota in Japan owns a Pam-A. Here's info he has given to me:

The red box is about 13.5cm×9cm×6cm.

The book says on the front page "NEW EDITION" "LONDON WILLIAM RIDER & SON LIMITED 1920"、and at the bottom of the last page (p 212) ”Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner, Frome and London." (This is the same as the one which came with my Pam-D.)

The deck itself is in good condition with full 78 cards, about 3.6cm thick.


For reference, I'll attach the picture he sent me.

kenji said:

Hello truelighth,

Mr Yasuhiko Hirota in Japan owns a Pam-A. Here's info he has given to me:

For reference, I'll attach the picture he sent me.

Click to expand...

Thank you, Kenji! And also thank mr Yasuhiko Hirota. I think I know him from Ebay . I will add it to the list

So far, I am getting a lot of positive responses to this request. Which is really great!

recently aquired an early crakle back PAM....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/101669074@N02/with/9729893267/

Hello all,

I know there are on-going debates on here and other tarot forums as to which eddition is which with these earlier RWS decks, I believe I have the Pam C, myself...I attached a photo link above showing some of the trump images (including the sun trump) as well as the red box it came housed in, and the book accompying it as well (which says 1920 new edd)

I would like to find out others on AT opinions on this, if you think it may be Pam C (or otherwise A B or D), this is the only early edd of RWS I own (from the set of crackle backs) so I would be interested to see what others have to say, mainly out of curiousity, comments are welcome.

Thanks

For some reason I can only see one of your pictures, it shows the box and backs. It might be my browser though, I don't know (Firefox). Anyway, the dead giveaway for a C is shown in this picture:

Sun

Also you might see here:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=3676120&postcount=18

There's a link to an article that has some great comparison pictures.

Yeah, its C in that case, from the looks of the sun, as I suspected, will fix in my catalog of decks, the main reason I wanted to know, so I could list it properly with in my decks

(you can see on the backs of the cards where the plates for the printing slipped as well) - flicker is "expeirencing problems" when I clicked on my own inbedded link.


Thanks