"Greenie" Thoth in a Green Box?

ladybird

I'm new to Thoth and decided after receiving a standard sized German Thoth in a Gold box as a gift that I needed to get a larger Thoth in English to see the illustrations better and read the keywords since I can't read a lick of German. :)

I went hunting on ebay and won a Large Green Box Thoth for $5. Sweet, I wasn't expecting much just a basic Thoth that I could read and see the images better. The description said mostly nothing but I didn't care as I just wanted to know that all the cards were there for study purposes.

It came today and I was surprised to find a Thoth with GREEN borders! From what I understand from bumping around on AT that this may be a "Greenie" but I thought these only came in a white box?!

It's in amazing condition and came with a blank card, a black/red hex card, and an Ordo Templi Orientis title card. The box (which is in rough shape, that's fine!) and title card says it's Printed in Belgium. (Which is my favorite era of USgames decks.) The backs don't have the white border nor the AGMuller copyright mark.

My questions are:
What year did they stop making the "Greenies"? I imagine that the green box the deck came in is THE box it was sold in. So I have a Greenie in a Green Box then? Or are there decks that are greener and those are the actual Greenies?

When did they start making the decks with the white borders with the copyright AGMuller on the back? I was surprised USgames (nor AGMuller as I've seen with other Thoths) didn't have a copyright mark on these cards. Anyone know anything about that?

Thanks and if you have anything extra to add about this I'd love to hear everything you know about this particular deck. :)
 

Emily

Hi ladybird, I didn't realise either until it was posted on here that some greenie decks were released in green boxes. I always thought they were White Box C's.

One sure fire way of checking if you have a greenie is to check the colour of the ink of the fonts, that should be green too. Also there are various shades of green. My greenie looks like the whole card has had a wash of green over it but some members here have really vivid greenies.

If you do a search on greenie Thoths or green, it should bring up some threads complete with pics.

Congratulations on your greenie. :)
 

ladybird

Thanks for your help, Emily! Yes, my deck does have the green font. It does seem to have a green wash over the image too when compared to the Gold Box Urania German Thoth that I have. If I hadn't compared the decks I wouldn't have noticed that! I'm enjoying the green tint with no borders on the back, it's lovely.

I went searching around the forum and found a glut of information on Thoth Specifically the links to the Tarot Garden's Thoth Table. It doesn't seem to be updated but I see that USgames continued to make the green Thoths in the beginning of the green box era. Maybe they ran out of boxes before they needed to reprint the cards? Is what I have then a White Box C deck that came in a green box? Seems reasonable but maybe someone can correct me?

I wonder if anyone out there has pinpointed a date in the transition from a green-cast Thoth with no white border on the back to nongreen-cast with a white border in the green box? My LWB says 1978, 1983 with 13th printing. I wonder if this is a 13th printing of the LWB that came in the White Box C or do I have a 13th printing from a green box? If that's the case then there should be many printings of a Greenie Thoth that came in a green box.

Our of curiosity, do the later Green Box Thoth decks with the grey borders have a USgames copyright mark on it? They usually have their mark on everything! I know the AGmuller decks have their copyright mark on the white-bordered backs.

Sorry for all the questions, I have read many Thoth threads here but I've been reading for hours and getting cross-eyed. (I even read the thread on how to pronounce Thoth! ;o))

Yay, Thoth!
 

Bluefeet

A $5 Greenie? Wow, that's a great find! I would say someone put the Greenie cards in a regular green box, I could be wrong but I think they stop producing the large White box C in the late 1980s.

ETA: and then they switched to smaller white box version following the large green box.
 

gregory

Yes that's what you've got. They had some left when they started on the green boxes, and so they put the remaining stock in those instead. I don't think you can honestly call it a white box Thoth, but it IS a greenie, from what you say. (After all, the white box ones varied too; there are the ones with... Ooh - you can see the table !!!)

There were still white boxes around with a date of 1986, but also green boxes. Delightfully confusing. My white box C (the tuck box one) is 1983....

I think this is the BEST thread about it all:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=35594

And Frank Jensen knows his stuff:

http://www.manteia-online.dk/deckreviews/dr049.htm

$5. Great stuff. If you ever want rid and it is VERY green, please get in touch !
 

ladybird

Thanks Gregory, for those links! There are many editions but I didn't see my deck listed in Lillie's thread (nor in Mr. Jensen's). The green box with the publisher as Weiser is the closest that comes to mine but mine has a different ISBN and USgames is the only publisher listed.

The front of LWB says "Instructions for Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot Deck". The bottom says "By James Wasserman plus two essays written by Lady Frieda Harris with commentary and footnotes by Stuart R. Kaplan". There is a picture of the Universe in Black and White in the middle.

The ISBN in the LWB matches the box 0-913866-15-6
The LWB says Copyright 1978, 1983 by Stuart R. Kaplan and Donald Weiser.
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13

I'll do a search on the ISBN and see what comes up.
 

ladybird

It seems that all the Large Green Thoths have that ISBN so that didn't help my search. Oh well, it's a greenie in a green box. What more do I really need to know?! Jeezh.

Thanks all for your help! :)
 

gregory

Not a lot. It is an early green box/late greenie, basically ! Early to mid 80s.

And a lovely find - and at that price, amazing. Just preen a bit and enjoy !

Oh PS. Only the OLD ones (unbordered backs) - which include greenies , as you know - came with the red/black UCH card. Newer ones that have one at all have a weird rainbowy one which - is kind of - so WRONG.

And the new Urania one that you have is rather - faded - by comparison with the older Muller ones, too, IMNVHO !
 

Zephyros

Confession: I've never seen a green-tinted Thoth, is there anywhere I can see a comparison? For that matter, I've been using the same old purple box standard one for ten years, I barely have any idea how any others look as to color, proportion, etc.

If only there was a site like Holly's RWS site but for the Thoth
 
The Book of The Law Study Group 3.61 Prince of Disks last card