Wheel of Fantastic
The Albano Waite is not everyone's cup of tea but it is one of my all time favourite decks. It has also been popular enough for US Games to keep it in print for, what, 26 years?
I originally got the US Games version in 2014 and immediately connected with it. As time went by I started to become a little disappointed as I discovered how different it was from the original 1968 edition.
Recently, I got hold of a vintage 1968 edition and the differences are pretty clear. The colours of the US Games version are a darker shade and thus not as 'vibrant'; the US Games version is blurry which has affected printing quality (the Page of Wands' staff has a green outline not present in the original); the colours of the Pentacles Court cards have been changed - the Knight of Pentacles is now the same muddy brown as the horse and the lavender skies have become a blah greyish blue.
But now even worse things are afoot. Out of curiosity to see what cardstock the deck is currently being printed on, I bought a new copy of the deck. Same heavily laminated cardstock as before. But now printing errors are creeping in - the King of Pentacles has a scratch in the upper right of the sky which is very noticeable. It could be taken to be a comet but it should not be there.
Next year is the 50th anniversary of the deck and this is the 21st century. The current printing of the deck really is not fit for purpose anymore; it would be to US Game's credit if they obtained a more accurate and faithful imaging/scan of the deck and released it next year. It's the least the company could do for one of their best selling evergreen decks.
I originally got the US Games version in 2014 and immediately connected with it. As time went by I started to become a little disappointed as I discovered how different it was from the original 1968 edition.
Recently, I got hold of a vintage 1968 edition and the differences are pretty clear. The colours of the US Games version are a darker shade and thus not as 'vibrant'; the US Games version is blurry which has affected printing quality (the Page of Wands' staff has a green outline not present in the original); the colours of the Pentacles Court cards have been changed - the Knight of Pentacles is now the same muddy brown as the horse and the lavender skies have become a blah greyish blue.
But now even worse things are afoot. Out of curiosity to see what cardstock the deck is currently being printed on, I bought a new copy of the deck. Same heavily laminated cardstock as before. But now printing errors are creeping in - the King of Pentacles has a scratch in the upper right of the sky which is very noticeable. It could be taken to be a comet but it should not be there.
Next year is the 50th anniversary of the deck and this is the 21st century. The current printing of the deck really is not fit for purpose anymore; it would be to US Game's credit if they obtained a more accurate and faithful imaging/scan of the deck and released it next year. It's the least the company could do for one of their best selling evergreen decks.