RichardG
RWS scholars – please help me identify this rarity found at an estate sale.
I don’t know what to make of this old B&W deck. It appears to be many decades old, housed in a tuck box with a 2 Swords card pasted on one side, but otherwise nothing by which to identify it. Because of details on the card titles, thickness of the bricks in The Sun, shading on the face of 9P, direction of the ‘sock puppet’ figure in the clouds in The Lovers, etc. this deck appears to have started off as / was based on / came before (???) the University Books edition (not Albano, U.K. Rider or Bert Bakker)
In fact, to my eyes, these cards are the UB line-art BEFORE colour was added! Please see the attachments to compare the tunic on The Fool, the feather in The Sun & Death, the garden in Ace P, the wand in Ace W, the mountains in Death, and virtually everything in The Lovers.
If it was simply a greyscale copy, dark colours would have come out as shades of grey – not white.
If it was a B&W copy, the dark colours would have come out black – definitely not white.
Additionally, the gray shading in UB cards has been preserved – see the sky in the Aces & Death and all titles.
The 9P confuses me the most. The garden, mountains & trees are the B&W line-art, but there is grey shading on her dress (not seen in line-art in DeL 'Key To the Tarot' or Eden Grey's books - but definitely seen in UB editions). And there are white blotches on her dress - where the red flowers/venus sign will later be added by University Books!
Images are the same UB size; card is 5mm longer and 5mm wider; card stock is thinner, the full deck standing approx ¾ as high as a UB deck (is this because the pink ankh backing sheet hadn’t been glued on yet? Both sides share the same light lamination as UB.
I’m not sure that the colours could be removed so efficiently even these days – but I judge this deck to be many decades old...
Please ask for more scans if it will help to identify this mysterious deck.
What is this treasure?
I don’t know what to make of this old B&W deck. It appears to be many decades old, housed in a tuck box with a 2 Swords card pasted on one side, but otherwise nothing by which to identify it. Because of details on the card titles, thickness of the bricks in The Sun, shading on the face of 9P, direction of the ‘sock puppet’ figure in the clouds in The Lovers, etc. this deck appears to have started off as / was based on / came before (???) the University Books edition (not Albano, U.K. Rider or Bert Bakker)
In fact, to my eyes, these cards are the UB line-art BEFORE colour was added! Please see the attachments to compare the tunic on The Fool, the feather in The Sun & Death, the garden in Ace P, the wand in Ace W, the mountains in Death, and virtually everything in The Lovers.
If it was simply a greyscale copy, dark colours would have come out as shades of grey – not white.
If it was a B&W copy, the dark colours would have come out black – definitely not white.
Additionally, the gray shading in UB cards has been preserved – see the sky in the Aces & Death and all titles.
The 9P confuses me the most. The garden, mountains & trees are the B&W line-art, but there is grey shading on her dress (not seen in line-art in DeL 'Key To the Tarot' or Eden Grey's books - but definitely seen in UB editions). And there are white blotches on her dress - where the red flowers/venus sign will later be added by University Books!
Images are the same UB size; card is 5mm longer and 5mm wider; card stock is thinner, the full deck standing approx ¾ as high as a UB deck (is this because the pink ankh backing sheet hadn’t been glued on yet? Both sides share the same light lamination as UB.
I’m not sure that the colours could be removed so efficiently even these days – but I judge this deck to be many decades old...
Please ask for more scans if it will help to identify this mysterious deck.
What is this treasure?