maciader
did anyone use the RWS deck to start out with? just curious...
Did you start with RWS?
6 Haunted Days
Oh I am sure lots here did! 
I scrambled and saved for a copy myself when I was 14 back in 1986....the love affair started soon thereafter
I scrambled and saved for a copy myself when I was 14 back in 1986....the love affair started soon thereafter le fey
During the early-70s when I got my first deck as a young teen, I think the RWS was really the only readily available deck to be had. With hindsight, I can see that this was when the deck-explosion was happening so there should have been more, but at least in the small Texas town where I bought my first deck, it was RWS or nothing. I had no idea at the time that there were other decks out there.
Elnor
I started with a version of the RWS; the Hoi Polloi.... does it count? 
I saw it in a magazine, and was so drawn to it even though I had no idea what Tarot was, or how to use it.
I did go on to take classes and workshops using the original RWS, since a lot of the symbolism used by Pamela was left out by the Hoi Polloi artist... I'm glad I did because it does give a lot more depth to the cards:for my own personal readings I still tend to use the Hoi Polloi. I like the colours- although they are a bit garish.
elnor
I saw it in a magazine, and was so drawn to it even though I had no idea what Tarot was, or how to use it.
I did go on to take classes and workshops using the original RWS, since a lot of the symbolism used by Pamela was left out by the Hoi Polloi artist... I'm glad I did because it does give a lot more depth to the cards:for my own personal readings I still tend to use the Hoi Polloi. I like the colours- although they are a bit garish.
elnor
Gayla
I started with the Elemental, but after I researched Tarot I realized I needed to look at the RWS. So, my first complete study of a deck was with the RWS.
JonMAblaze
Yes. It was a gift. I'm studying other decks now, but I think I'll have an RWS at hand for a long time. I'm still just as drawn to it.
Skydancer
My first actual tarot was the Robin Wood. A bit later I got a RWS at a local store to see what the "original" was all about. Then we finally got local internet out here in the boonies and well ....... the rest is history!!
*S*
*S*
Nevermore
My first was an Art of Tarot kit by Liz Dean..beautiful majors but unillustrated minors, and the deck was huge for my hands so I got bored and frustrated fast. I got a RRW which I shouldn't have returned for a Manga but I did just that. Don't get me wrong, I love my Manga to pieces, but the symbolism of the RRW is more written about, and meanings are easier to find.
moderndayruth
I did Little did i know... lol Ten years and ten decks later i realise i "enrolled" the university, without graduating from the high scholl... or the primary school, so to say
But i wouldn't want it any other way.
For the record - i am a RWS and clones fan, so this a subjective view.
Btw, i deeply believe that decks choose us, not viceversa
Initially, i wanted a Thoth, but the Universe managed to sent me the RWS through a friend who knows nothind about Tarot and who was asked (begged is closer definiton ) to get it for me from the States.
Little did i know... lol Ten years and ten decks later i realise i "enrolled" the university, without graduating from the high scholl... or the primary school, so to say But i wouldn't want it any other way.
For the record - i am a RWS and clones fan, so this a subjective view.
Btw, i deeply believe that decks choose us, not viceversa
Initially, i wanted a Thoth, but the Universe managed to sent me the RWS through a friend who knows nothind about Tarot and who was asked (begged is closer definiton
) to get it for me from the States.Alissa
My first, beloved and now deceased deck was a Universal Waite - do clones count? I love it so much, even still, that when my originals died this summer in a Tragic Lemonade Incident, I immediately replaced them with a new Uni Waite deck. (Which still is too glossy and slick and smells stinky like factory-chemical ink, but hey... they need a decade to be broken in, like the last ones).
