Your First Deck

nisaba

Bought for $2.95 or something, in KMart (yes, I DO mean KMart !) in about 1975, in a fit of jealous rage.

<pricks up ears>

Details. DETAILS, woman!

There's a story there, and I mean to have it.
 

Thoughtful

Yes yes! do share, did it harm the poor little 1JJ has it recovered.
 

gregory

Lord - I just didn't want to REPEAT it as it is rather DULL and is here in several threads.

My SO and I were gently on the outs at that point. He bought himself a University Books Waite. I was livid that he had something I didn't, but was NOT about to COPY him, as that is Not Good Stuff, actually copying someone you are on the outs with. So I searched - and at that time the ONLY other deck I could find showed up in KMart when I was shopping for PJs for the girls !

Not long afterwards I discovered the white box Thoth in an OTO shop in Toronto - I think it MUST have been an OTO shop, from the merchandise I recall - though it isn't there any more - and then the Occult Shop, which was then on Queen Street W. They still had the raven then... The rot set in....

Oh @ Thoughtful - the deck is fine. I have it still. The pretty one in the nice red lift-top box :) I have even read with it, though I find TdM style decks hard.
 

Tanga

"your first deck"

Art Nouveau Tarot (Myers). I was on a "year out" from University living with my sister in Holland, and it was the first time I had walked into an esoteric bookshop - "De Wijze Kater"
(The Wise Cat. Esoteric bookshops don't exist where I grew up).
I was delighted by many interesting things there and came out with this tarot deck and my first book on Modern British Wicca. I loved the stained glass effect and the couple stories that the minor arcana told.

Some years later I looked through the deck again and thought "you know what? - there are no black people in this deck!" - and promptly gave it away after that. :)

I don't miss it, and I think of it very fondly.
 

Bookwight

My very first deck was the Arthurian (Matthews), given to me for my birthday in 1991/2 by a friend. I’d been vaguely interested in occult stuff for a few years already, and now I can’t think why I never got myself a deck, but that friend knew me well (still does) and the Arthurian suited me down to the ground. I loved it instantly, studied the heck out of it, got the Arthurian Tarot Course to go with it, and later the expanded-edition Hallowquest.

Still love it. Still have it. It’s a bit worn but otherwise in good shape, and has acquired its own pleasant smell after years in proximity with various incenses and candles and stuff.

I now have a back-up copy and the app (thank you Fool’s Dog!), but I still read with the original — which you can pry from my cold dead hands. It’s my fall-back, go-to, stand-by, old-comfort, whatever-you-call-it deck.
 

FLizarraga

Three decks, really

First deck ever: an incomplete Marseille --maybe Fournier, with Spanish titles, wrapped in a piece of black silk-- given to me as a gift by my then landlady, who was a witch. Never tried to read with it.

First deck I ever bought: Original Rider Waite Tarot Pack, the one with the large blue and yellow box and Waite's book. Loved and cherished, but rarely read with. (I even forgot I had it until last year.)

First deck I ever read with: Kat Black's Golden Tarot. Still my comfort, no-nonsense, go-to deck.
 

Amanda

My first deck was the Tarot Nova bought for me by Amanda04. I saw how awesome her readings were and wanted to learn too, so she took me out to the bookstore and bought me my first deck. Thanks Amanda!!! <3

You're welcome, lovely! :heart: I'm sure that Knight of Pentacles is perfectly happy on the ground under the gazebo. :D

~~~~

I think I've mentioned before that the RWS was my first deck. But it might have actually been the Lord of the Rings. I can't remember honestly, as they were bought too close together. I think I thought that if the tarot thing didn't work out with the Lord of the Rings, I could play the game. But I remember not liking the deck for reading and having no interest in the game at all. So I think I ended up picking up my (old faithful) RWS that -thank goodness- was printed in Switzerland, with great heavy cardstock that will probably last forever. The top of the box has finally fallen off, and I can barely get the cards squeezed into the box because they have been so used and plumped. I like that it's old and used-looking now, and smells of an old library. :D I ended up getting another copy in later years, and I just did not like the (Italy printed?) glossy cardstock, boo! Sold it here on the trading forum. The Lord of the Rings deck is floating around England somewhere, as I sold it a few years ago to another member here.

Seriously, if my house caught fire, I'd probably grab my RWS right along with my children and my animals as I run out the door! :D
 

misskrystalx

My very first deck was my beloved Sacred Rose Tarot, by Johanna Gargiulo-Sherman, in the early 90s. I still have the book, but due to some unexpected life events, my cards are long gone.

Ah, how I loved that deck. I would give anything to have it back. Sigh.....
 

starlightexp

The Hanson-Robert deck that just happened to fall into my pocket while I was in a Kroch's and Brentano's when I was 12
 

Eider

Mine was Medicine Woman 6 years ago (I think). Odd choice for me actually. My mother had it and I saw it. My life was a mess back then. I liked the positivity. I did a reading with my mothers deck and somehow it was very comforting. I went to the bookstore and bought my own. I used it with the LWB. I was never interested enough to study it more but I always got the results I wanted. That deck always made me feel a bit better.

Years later I got more into tarot. I wanted another deck. Medicine Woman started feeling a bit too fluffy. I don't use anymore it but I keep it. Sometimes I go through it and look at the images. It reminds me of the start of my spiritual journey.