Aging a Deck

sapienza said:

I personally don't care if my deck LOOKS old or not. But these new US Games decks with the super shiny lamination are a nightmare. They just don't feel right to me. I find them difficult to shuffle, they slip all over the place. I'm not sure I'd take quite the extreme measures that Kat has with her Hanson Roberts but I would like to rough it up a bit.

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Exactly. It isn't to make the deck look older but to make it useable. I probably won't dunk any deck in tea but sanding seems like a good way to take care of the lamination problem with the new US Games decks.

I love my Faerie Tarot but the lamination makes it feel so dead and not like a pack of cards at all. Free the faeries from their cage of plastic! Yeah!

I just finished aging a Caring Psychic Family deck. It was the only one I could bear to take chances with. For this particular deck I think the sandpaper on the face was a bit much, probably depends on the coating on the deck. I ran them over the table edge several times, gave them a tea bath and roughed up the edges with sandpaper. I really like how the deck feels--soft and bouncy. They don't really fan out well if you like to choose cards that way, but they do separate into stacks very nicely.

Have just looked at your workings. Unless i have missed something esoteric this is lost on me. The bright clear vitality is how the set up came out of the printers. In a simple minded state i imagine this is how they intended these cards to present to the purchasing populace.
i make and restore oil lamps. If i offered one to the 'trade' at less than original factory presentation there would be a "ripple in the force" even though the subject might be more than a century old !

I also couldn't resist and table-edged and tea-bathed my Tarot of the Dead today. It has always been too white for my taste, and I thought I might want to use it more often if it looked a bit more roughed up. It also was the deck I suspected I would least regret ruining if things went wrong.

First I thought nothing much had happened, but when I got out one of the extra cards for comparison, the difference was really obvious. A lot less stiffness, shinyness, and whiteness. The slight tea-tone fits well with the pastel colors of the deck. And it feels MUCH better when I handle it. I'll try to take a picture tomorrow when the daylight is back.

[ETA: My cell phone camera doesn't show the color difference very well, let alone the different feel of the cards, so unfortunately no photos from me.]

So far, I like what I got.

The only problem I have is that my cards seem to have developed a slight bend, one that I can bend to either side (as if the edges were a little tight for the card center - uh, am I explaining this in a way that makes sense?). I did shuffle and turn around the cards into all possible directions a lot while they dried, so I don't believe this is where the bend got in. Any ideas why this happened and if it will disappear when the cards have completely dried through?

Aladdin said:

Unless i have missed something esoteric this is lost on me. The bright clear vitality is how the set up came out of the printers. In a simple minded state i imagine this is how they intended these cards to present to the purchasing populace.

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Well, but now that I have already purchased the deck and found that I didn't like it enough to use much the way it was (but still wanted to keep it), don't I have the right to customize it? It's mine, isn't it?

I believe it all comes down to aesthetic preferences. Some people like shiny and new looking things, no matter how old they really are (your oil lamps being a case in point). Some people like old and battered looking things, no matter how old they really are.

So, as long as no one "ages" their tarot decks to make a querent believe they have more reading experience than they actually have - and if I wanted to do that, I wouldn't post about my deck "aging" activities in a tarot forum where I do a lot of my readings - I don't see the problem.

Aladdin said:

Have just looked at your workings. Unless i have missed something esoteric this is lost on me. The bright clear vitality is how the set up came out of the printers. In a simple minded state i imagine this is how they intended these cards to present to the purchasing populace.
i make and restore oil lamps. If i offered one to the 'trade' at less than original factory presentation there would be a "ripple in the force" even though the subject might be more than a century old !

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I think what's being missed, that cannot be conveyed in the photos, is how the deck feels after this process is completed: supple, pliable, and somehow sturdier like cloth or leather rather than paper or cardboard. Instead of thinking about it like a lamp which is not meant to be held or touched, think about like a favorite pair of jeans. True, they may look their best when they are new from the store, but don't they feel so much better after they have been washed and worn many times? The number of posts in this forum about the quality of cardstock, lamination, etc. demonstrates that for many tarot enthusiasts the images are not the only thing to consider.

Like thorhammer stated in the first post, I also did this as a bit of fun, not to offer for trade or sale. I don't read with this deck, but since aging it, I keep picking it up to shuffle, fan through it, etc. I may have to do this with a 78 card deck once I find a suitable spare.

cSpaceDiva said:

Instead of thinking about it like a lamp which is not meant to be held or touched, think about like a favorite pair of jeans.

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I love this comparison! It's so true, too.

Good for you guys! CSpaceDiva, your Caring Psychic Family card looks just brilliant! It has made me want one of those decks just so I can age it Thankyou for sharing.

I'd love to see photos of your Tarot of the Dead, Cat* - anyone you can borrow a camera from? I think it sounds really interesting.

As to the bend in the cards, mine have that, too. But I'm not worried about handling mine really roughly now, so I wrench them about and bend them savagely every time I shuffle them, and do the casino poker shuffle thing which is helping. I think they'll come up fine after some good use.

Do either of you have plans to do another deck, now that you've got your feet wet?

\m/ Kat

Sar said:

Kat.

You are clearly insane.

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Was there ever a doubt about this ????

I agree- anyone can do what they like with their decks - but I couldn't..... I had to buy a spare when I wanted to TRIM one, for pity's sake....

gregory said:

Was there ever a doubt about this ????

I agree- anyone can do what they like with their decks - but I couldn't..... I had to buy a spare when I wanted to TRIM one, for pity's sake....

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Heeeyyyy . . . Ganging up!

It was the spare! It was the first HR I got, and after I got a copy of the earlier printing, there was just no comparison! The early one is a wonder, it is perfect and I love it. The newer one was horrid. But had potential and I wanted to try the process out, so 2 + 2 = aged deck.

It's better now. Really.

\m/ Kat

mm i like to age my decks and it really has more to do with the symbolism than what anybody would think(including myself).

If something looks old it looks real; antiquity symbolises truth.