The Pamela Colman Smith Centennial Deck review thread

Trump Lloyd said:

Wouldn't be able to copyright it.

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I think you may well be right: can't claim something that you have just copied from somewhere else without adding anything to it.

"The Smith-Waite Tarot is a registered trademark of US Games Systems"

(Thought there might be this sort of reason behind the change of name.)

Although I REALLY can't see how they can claim copyright to all the illustrations in the Kaplan book (which is what it says in the inside front cover) as many are out of copyright and I don't think just printing them again means you claim they are yours.

Aerin

I received my Set yesterday, and I can say, it was the best 30 Euro's I've ever spent. I agree with the books, they could have been a little sturdier. But I love the Deck. I just love everything about it. The Backs are wonderful. The entire set is very well made, and I ordered a Back Up. I never do that. I just had to have another one of these, just in case.

Marcia959 said:

Am I the only one who likes the greenie tint? I wanted the deck to be unique and I think this does that.

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I actually like the greenish tint as well. Well, I mean, when I first saw the deck, I immediately liked it and the fact that it is more greenish than the original doesn't really make me like it less. I was merely posting my observations. And my opinion, because if I had a choice, I would go for the more subdued colours of the original. But I think this one is very good. If you don't hold the original and this one side by side, then it does give a feel of being very original.

inanna_tarot said:

thanks everyone for posting your reviews and pics of the deck. i think ive actually found a copy of the rw i can actually like! lol

ETA Ive just ordered it! Cant wait till it arrives and open up all the goodies!

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I'm curious to see how you like it once it arrives. I don't really like the RW decks, either and I was thinking this might actually be a copy I do like. I haven't received mine yet so I can't say.

coredil said:

Thanks a lot truelighth, after your explanations I have now the feeling as if I my off center centennial copy would be almost an original Roses&Lilies Pam A
I add some scans to show how much off-center somes cards are.
But I really doubt that this off-centering was intended

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Ok, I looked at your scans. And to be honest, the same cards in my centennial copy are not that much off center. I am afraid that maybe you got a bit of a 'misprint' (miscut in this case). Strength in my deck is similar, but the Fool, Magician, and Empress are not. Maybe you should point this out to US Games and ask for a replacement deck?

Anyway, about the original cards being off-center. Well, they are way worse off center in some cases. I scanned 4 of them as examples. But there are at lest 20 cards in the deck that are badly off-center. Some of them, like the Queen of Pentacles that I scanned, don't have a border one one side. The backs are the same:

Frank Hall said:

Thank you for the side-by-side cards, Truelighth. I like the set for all its examples of Pamela Colman Smith's graceful, charming, simple yet deep Art. I wonder about the dark clouds in the Wheel of Fortune. Are these about as dark as the Pamela A? They give a mysterious tone to the image.

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Hi Frank,

For your convenience, I have also scanned the Wheel of Fortune from the Roses&Lilies and the centennial deck next to eachother:



As you can see, the clouds are indeed also dark on the Roses&Lilies deck. Though interestingly enough, they are not that dark on the crackled back Pam-A! This is one of those differences I talked about between the Roses&Lilies deck and the crackled ones.

I think maybe we should consider renaming the Roses&Lilies and crackled back. Right now, they are both referred to as Pam-A, while they are in fact different. Even more different then the Pam B/C.

Aerin said:

I think you may well be right: can't claim something that you have just copied from somewhere else without adding anything to it.

"The Smith-Waite Tarot is a registered trademark of US Games Systems"

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That could be. But then, they always managed to put their copyright on the RWS anyway, while in fact the only thing copyrighted they own about the RWS is the box and the borders of the card. So I don't think this change has been made with that in mind.

My opinion, I think they used the more greenish tint to try and look it more aged and more like the original. I am guessing to actually get the more subdued and washed out colouring of the original cards, you might actually need to print them on similar stock and with lithography. Which would make a true reproduction much more expensive to make. So they probably thought of this as a short-cut.

truelighth said:

Ok, I looked at your scans. And to be honest, the same cards in my centennial copy are not that much off center. I am afraid that maybe you got a bit of a 'misprint' (miscut in this case). Strength in my deck is similar, but the Fool, Magician, and Empress are not. Maybe you should point this out to US Games and ask for a replacement deck?

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No, no!
I keep it and give it this name: "Pam A Centennial Off-Center"

coredil said:

No, no!
I keep it and give it this name: "Pam A Centennial Off-Center"

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LOL!!!

fferyllt said:

But I was flipping through the Pictorial Key to the Tarot. There are no drawings of the cards! It's not Pictorial, but just a Key to the Tarot. I'm disappointed over that, as I like having the pictures in the book, and given the title, I was expecting them to be there.

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Me too.

I spent the weekend with this set and I am very pleased.
The price was GREAT (Amazon USA) and I love the book with her other artwork.
I am currently reading the 'pictorial' book.