RWS 3 of Wands weird thing

blue_fusion

So I'm doing digital colouring experiments with the RWS as a basis. When I got to the Threes, I couldn't figure out what that thing was in the 3 of Wands. There's this odd dark scribble of sorts extending from the right side of the man's cape. I uploaded an image, and encircled the dubious thing in green for clarification.

So... what do you think it is? It doesn't look like a leaf, and it's too high above the horizon to be yet another ship.
 

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crabpixie

hmmmm

This is very interesting.. if you look closely also.. the lines cross over his cloak and non of the shading is of the same thickness.

The first thing that sprung to mind was the zodiac symbol for aquarius....
 

Hannafate

It almost looks like a printing error. That would be kind of funny, a blob on the plate, and everyone faithfully copies it in all the variants.

Interesting little marks.
 

nisaba

Or an artist's equivalent of a slip of hte tongue or a type - if Smith were holding two brushes for the parallel thing and something jogged her elbow? That is what it most looks like, to me.
 

RiccardoLS

You are not looking at the art of Pamela Colman Smith on the RWS.
You are looking to the art of a lithography copyst that painstakingly copied Pamela's art on stone (actually on gummy paper and from that to stone).
[my English is a little bad with these terms... arghhh]

Anyway, the mark on the three of wands does not appear on all editions of the RWS. If you accept Alligo theory regarding the first editions, it appears from the second edition on. Probably an ink bleed on gummy paper due to rush.

ric
 

mac22

crabpixie said:
This is very interesting.. if you look closely also.. the lines cross over his cloak and non of the shading is of the same thickness.

The first thing that sprung to mind was the zodiac symbol for aquarius....

What does aquarius have to do with this card?

Mac22
 

blue_fusion

And here I was thinking it was prodigious armpit hair growth. :D Well, that kinda solves things, I guess I'll just not draw that part then.
 

blue_fusion

I wonder if it's in the commemorative one too!
 

RiccardoLS

99% yes
(It's just guesswork, but the are no printed edition that I know of (apart from the OOP LS one, that never really existed) of the first edition of the RWS (of course this depend to what theory you follow regarding what is the first ed.) so... you'll get that and the odd line on the Sun card.)
 

coredil

Interesting ;)
I never noticed this detail.

Here some scans of my collection.
It is not to find on the Pam C and on the Original.
But you can see it on the Pam D, the Blue Box, the Yellow Box, the University Books editions and even on a early edition of the de Laurence book (1916)

Best regards
 

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