Well, now we have at least one fact. That tuck-box exists. No reason to discuss that more. Have anyone given it a thought that it could be a small size deck? The seller did not describe the size. It could have been, that was the first that struck me. What to do then? Ask the seller. Amazingly it was still possible to use the old 'ask seller a question' link with the auction. I have tried that before, but ebay wouldn't send the question on, since the auction had ended and I had not been taking part. This time it, however, worked. Maybe because the auction was listed at British ebay and not in ebay, USA. I had the seller's reply a couple of hours ago. The auction was 2½ month ago and he was not entirely but almost sure that it was a normal size deck. He said that he had sold several tarot decks over the time, and if this was an unusual small size, he would have included that in the description. So we are almost sure. Then we can start looking for it and we can start guessing.
Why have we not seen this box before?
First guess: Maybe they have just been overlooked. 'Rider-Waite Tarot in blue box' will not make me take a closer look. Other may felt the same .
Second guess: maybe only very few of those boxes were actually made, being rarer than even a Pam-A deck which after all show up from time to time. Why that? It is most likely - but not a fact - that the tuck-box came after the welknown two part blue boxes, which were sold over a relatively long period. What could the reason be for introducing a cheaper box at a late time? One reason could be - but it is still not a fact - that Rider was about to phase out a remaining stock of cards, but did not have boxes for them. Then a small stock of boxes was made cheaply instead of throwing the cards out. Why were the cards themselves not taken over by USGS? Likely because that Stuart R.K. wanted to have his copyright on all cards, not only on the boxes. This period of transition was likely rather confusing and all sorts of mixture of decks with no copyright statement and decks with USGS statement and various types of boxes could easily have happened. Still, this is guesswork, not facts.
Anyway, I'll asap include the picture from the auction in
www.manteia-online-dk to prove the fact that this is an existing box.