Help! Where's my magnifying glass?

Did you ever get a tarot deck where you really have to squint to see the artwork? Where the details are just so teeny tiny that you wish you had a magnifying glass nearby? The art on some cards looks so beautiful when I see it on scans on the web, but once that art gets shrunk down to the size of a card, sometimes it ends up being so small that it's almost unreadable. Sometimes this happens because the cards are too small, or it might be because too much of the card was devoted to the borders. I've got a few decks in my collection like this, and I've also heard that the Shadowscapes is like this (which is one reason I haven't bought it).

Anybody else own or know about any decks where the art is way too small?

The standard purple box Thoth is too small for me to make out the details comfortably, but I'm very happy with the large green box edition.

I won't be the first to say it......

Shadowscapes, awesome deck, reads beautifully, some of the loveliest art and one of the best Death=Transformation cards ever, but it's tooooooooooo small.
I want one the size of Ciro's original Tarot of Dreams decks, I don't care if it's awkward to shuffle, I'll turn em sideways and shuffle long ways, but gimme one I can see all the awesome detail in.

While yr at it o mystical tarot wish granter, gimme a large Maroon as well.

Seriously I'm nearly 50, I need bigger decks.

Phineas said:

Shadowscapes, awesome deck, reads beautifully, some of the loveliest art and one of the best Death=Transformation cards ever, but it's tooooooooooo small.
I want one the size of Ciro's original Tarot of Dreams decks, I don't care if it's awkward to shuffle, I'll turn em sideways and shuffle long ways, but gimme one I can see all the awesome detail in.

Click to expand...

I agree, awesome deck, gorgeous art, but oh how I wish there was a larger edition available, I would buy it in a flash.

I also struggle with the Paulina.

Shadowscapes, so beautiful, so tiny. Sharazde, Tarot of the Orient, same story. Legend Arthurian.
so tiny. Such splendid detail...if you can see it.

Yes, the Shadowscapes. Like everyone else. What goes through a publisher's mind? I mean do they all sit around a table saying "yep. Look at all that incredible detail!"

I have reasonably good eye sight. I mean, I don't have trouble seeing anything else. I can spot and swat mosquitos in movement, but the Shadowscapes...

People find the Paulina difficult but I have no problem seeing that...

'The Whispering Tarot'... Beautiful artwork with lots and lots of detail and whimsical bits but tiny, tiny cards (pocket sized I'd say)... I could hardly see the symbolism and details, let alone read with it..

<grin> Those decks are *huge*! The "Tiny Tarot" a RW version, measures 22mm x35 mm and advertises itself as the smallest deck in the world. It's quite tricky to shuffle, to say the least. However, there is a smaller deck - the mini Tarot Nova which measures 15mm x 20mm, less than an inch along its longest side. I regret, now, that I didn't buy two copies of it, and make a set of earrings with them (I don't do asymmetrical earrings).

Using the Nova, I tend to put the deck in my cupped hands, shake it up like dice, and toss onto a table. I read those cards which fall closest to the centre of the scatter, and only those which land face-up. Picking up and packing away the deck easily takes twice the time of the entire reading.

I just thought of a deck that's even worse than the Shadowscapes, if that's at all possible. It's the Tarot of 1001 Nights. I don't have it but I've seen scans. The art is REALLY detailed. I can't imagine that it would work shrunk down to card size. I don't think you'd be able to see anything at all.

Other decks that I find are way too small are the Archeon, Mystic Dreamer, and Universal Fantasy. And I'll second the vote for the Maroon, which already got mentioned.

The Stella Tarot. The heads of the characters are the size of match heads. Granted they're supposed to have small heads - that's the style - but way too much detail is lost thanks to gloriously huge borders and a murky printing. A real shame, because it looks like some great artwork. Oh, poor, poor Stella.