Roman Numerals on the Minor Arcana and Misprinted Ones: Is this on All RWS-decks?

lucifall

Looking at the Roman Numerals on the Cards, i found some "misprints". I wonder if these "misprints" are also on the oldest version of the RWS and of course i wonder: " are these misprints made on purpose? "

"Real misprints":
5 of Cups: The V has no Roof
8 of Cups: The Line above the V is not complete
10 of Cups: The X:No Roof/ No Bottom

5 of Wands: The V has no Roof

9 of Swords: The X has no Roof

Other Strange Prints/ appearances:

The 5 of Pentacles has a (very long) Roof-Line and a Bottom Line which connects the two towers in the Window.
The 5 of Swords is printed as the Normal Roman Numeral (As the Hierofant)
It appears that all the 5's are printed differently on the Minor Arcana. This might well connect the fives with Geburah, the Sefirot of Strife.

The 3 of Pentacles has also a long Roof-Line and Bottem Line integrated in the lines of the Vesica Pisces.

If someone has different RWS Sets, please is it possible, to look, if above mentioned prints are the same on the older decks?
Are there suggestions why these cards are misprinted?

Light Lucifall
 

rwcarter

Looking at my Pam B, only the 5 Pentacles has a "roof line" and that V looks like it was hastily drawn in because it looks so different from the other 5 cards in the Minors.

The line above the V in the 7 Cups is as incomplete as that of the 8 Cups.

My 10 Cups and 5 Wands are as you describe.

The X in my 9 Swords has a roof and a basement. ;)

The other cards in my Pam B match your descriptions. What you see as misprints, I see as being inconsistent, almost as if more than one person did the lettering of the numbers on the cards. If I had noticed it before, it never jumped to the front of my consciousness until your post. I do IT Support for a living, and as I like to say about software, "There are no bugs, only undocumented features." :D The same may be said of the lettering of the Roman Numerals in this deck....

Rodney
 

Debra

The artist may have incorporated the inconsistencies in lettering for design reasons. I would :D
 

lucifall

rwcarter said:
Looking at my Pam B

Thanks for your answer Rodney.
Are you maybe familiar with a website which shows the cards of the Pam B set? I hope there is...


Light
Lucifall
 

rwcarter

I don't know of any one site that shows all of the Pam B (or A or C or D for that matter), but I know there are lots of compare/contrast threads here in RWS.

A group of us did a compare/contrast between my Pam B, a friend's Pam A, the PCS Commemorative, the Original RW and the Accurate Color Tone Albano-Waite. For the most part the differences were subtle between the two Pams, and it was apparent that two of the others were based off the A and the third was based off the B. (I honestly don't remember at this point though which were which.)

Rodney
 

Debra

The "Original" is based on the Pam B :)