The Illuminated Tarot - Carol Herzer

Alta

I have the medium and fell in love immediately. Everything about this deck is 'right'. I got the illuminated version but honestly don't think it adds much except cost. The plain should be excellent.
 

Nina*

Are they otherwise the same these days.. I mean cardstock, lamination and backs?
 

Sulis

The large and medium are both on the thicker cardstock now and the pocket is on slightly thinner cardstock.
The cards are laminated on both sides and all cards now have the pale blue backs with little white stars.

I think there was a problem with the medium sized decks being quite flimsy as Carol was using the thinner cardstock for the medium decks for a while. I think she changed to the thick for the medium quite recently.
 

Nina*

Sulis said:
The large and medium are both on the thicker cardstock now and the pocket is on slightly thinner cardstock.
The cards are laminated on both sides and all cards now have the pale blue backs with little white stars.

I think there was a problem with the medium sized decks being quite flimsy as Carol was using the thinner cardstock for the medium decks for a while. I think she changed to the thick for the medium quite recently.
Thank you, Sulis. Yes, I got a medium from her a year or more ago and it was awful (at least compared to the medium iridescent with vinyl back I'd had). I laminated it once more myself so now it's fairly good, but I might get another one some day.
 

shadowdancer

i too am heartened to hear it is better quality. I did actually buy the medium iridescent deck from e-bay at a more than reasonable price, but put it up for trade pretty much straight away. the paint looked like it had been dabbed on haphazzardly. The cards were also badly curled. It really did put me off the whole deck.

It appears that the normal edition on newer cardstock is a much better option. I won't be investing in this deck as I have enough for now, but I am pleased the experience I had is not being repeated. Maybe it was just a one off problem

Davina
 

Anam Cara

I don't know what the cards looked like in the past,
so I can't compare...
But I LOVE my medium that I recently purchased!
It shuffles as nice, if not nicer than, any of my other
decks...and the iridescent paint is lovely! it GLOWS in low light...
beautiful!
:heart:cara
 

Enchanted Luna

So nice to hear such great things about this deck....I can't wait wait wait now to see it!!! :D
 

Andalucia

It's great to see this discussion, as I recently received some large and medium versions of Carols' decks.They are well worth purchasing, although the risk is that they can render your other decks redundant!

I agree with some of the comments regarding the irridescent colours -they can sometimes seem a bit 'slapped on' and sometimes obscure picture detail, though overall they add to the already beautiful artwork.

For me it is the skies that make the deck, there is so much mood in the colours.Some days I look at the sky and in my mind it is a 'Carol Herzer sky'!

Some startling renditions of the original court card faces also appeal to me, such as the page of pentacles and page of swords - they really have character.

On the subject of the colour effects, the knight of pentacles looks, to me, very dark and mysterious in this deck. There are so many comments I could make.

If Rider-Waite imagery does it for you, it is almost impossible to ignore this deck. I do not see it as clone, it is a beautifully painted offspring of the original deck.
 

Anam Cara

WOW!!!! These just keep getting better and better!

I'm reviving this thread because I made a discovery about this deck this evening and HAD to share!!
(if someone else already had this revleation and posted it, I'm sorry
I missed it...)

This evening, I was sitting in my car, waiting for a friend.
As I was waiting, I pulled out the deck-of-the-day (there's always
at LEAST one in my bag!) which today was my medium Illuminated
(with iridescent accents) and was looking at them while I waited.
I was holding the cards up to get a closer look at each one and
noticed I could see light coming through the cards!! They truly were illuminated!
The sun was setting behind the windshield and the light
was just right...each card seemed to glow from within!

I played with them a little, then, to see if I held one card behind
another if I could see the image of the back card through the front
card...but they're not THAT transparent...the back card blocked
the light to the first.

So, as the sun set, I went through each card in the deck, appreciating
them all over again in a new way....beautiful!!

This deck is truly filled with magick!!
:heart:cara
 

jeseryn

I received my samples in the mail yesterday. Love the sparkly medium. I think it really adds a lot of movement and magic to the cards. I am interested in buying a deck but it's over a hundred bucks and the card stock is basically paper. Very thin and this was printed on a home printer is my guess (I work in graphic design) then laminated.

Is it easy to shuffle? It is gorgeous but seems flimsy. How does the entire deck feel in the hand? Similiar to others?