New to historical decks, where to begin?

Sherryl said:

Hello a weaver and welcome to the wonderful world of historic tarot.

You've received some good advice here to get you going. If I may, I'd like to suggest my own website, www.tarot-heritage.com for an easy-to-read illustrated overview of tarot history. In the cartomancy section there are some tips on how to select a deck for reading and lots of lessons and exercises to help you learn reading with historic decks.

Happy studying!

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Another great link, thanks.

Yves Le Marseillais said:

If you are interested in historical decks, I suggest you to have a tour on my own website as to see a nice gallery of old historical Tarot of Marseilles Pattern decks.

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Sherryl said:

If I may, I'd like to suggest my own website, www.tarot-heritage.com for an easy-to-read illustrated overview of tarot history. In the cartomancy section there are some tips on how to select a deck for reading and lots of lessons and exercises to help you learn reading with historic decks.

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What fantastic resources. Thanks so much.

Dear Sherryl, Your cartomancy section is a tremendous reference! (As is you're entire site). After spending some time there I'm beginning to get my bearings in the world of tarot history. Thank you


And Bertrand, I absolutely agree that using the cards is the best way to learn/ know them.

Kaplan's Tarot Encyclopedia volumes are great reference sources, but seem to be highly chaotic to me. The volumes don't seem to necessarily correspond to different time periods, nor are the tarot decks arranged in any logical order from what I can see. It is also a shame USG did not think to charge slightly more and have colour pages - which would have made a huge difference. I would have paid more for that. Also, if he realised he had made various errors, then why not release a second edition/revised version the first volume rather than leaving an erroneous book in publication and creating another? Probably monetary reasons and a desire to include additional content. Chaos!

a*weaver said:

Dear Sherryl, You're cartomancy section is a tremendous reference! (As is you're entire site). After spending some time there I'm beginning to get my bearings in the world of tarot history. Thank you

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I'm glad you found the website useful. I've just started reading Jodorowsky's The Way of Tarot and am very impressed. I especially like how he starts you off looking at the deck as a whole and the relationship among the cards, rather than just slogging through the deck card by card.