Rider-Waite deck date identification?

[The crowned one]

AS an example: The early to late 70's in the USA and Canada saw a few editions of the Rider Waite Tarot deck with the magician on the cover. The ISBN is 0-913866-13-x. The ISBN does not change and they are all 10 numbers therefore pre 2007 and IN THEORY unchanged. How do I date them all? What about other versions? Anyone managed to date these decks accurately within the box art style or deck variations? I have a short list I have managed using the LWB advertising. Some are obvious the farther back you go, or the one off's but many are not, particularly for the layman. Can we help with this issue?

I can break down the ISPN for language and general meaning but it does not help with dating.

A data base might prove useful? Holly's is a good start to build off of.

Edit(My 2000 post. Wow I am chatty, but this topic is fitting as a milestone as these decks mean a lot to me )

 

[Abrac]

There has been a lot written on this subject but it's scattered around, and if you haven't been following it, you will have to do a lot of searching. Teheuti has posted a very good summary here.

I have taken some pictures of my decks and posted them along with commentary. Hopefully this will help.

There are some simple ways to identify the different versions from the boxes and LWBs alone. For starters, on the older decks you are not going to see a copyright notice on the back of the box as seen here. Notice that the box on the left doesn't have an ISBN either. The bottom also holds clues. The box on the left with no bar code is older. On the front there is also a clue. The box on the left does not have the ® symbol after the word "Deck." It is older than the one on the right. These are good general guidelines, but there is another way to get even more precise.

The LWBs have an address for US Games. This picture shows three LWBs in order of age. The one on the left is oldest. You can also see this reflected in the reprint numbers. The one on the left begins with 11 (oldest), the one in the center 16 (older), and the one on the right 28 (newest). The time frames for the addresses is as follows: 468 Park Avenue South (1970 or '71 - circa 1980); 38 East 32 Street (circa 1980 - circa 1985); Stamford, CT (circa 1980 - Present). These dates may not be exact, but they are very close.

Samuel Weiser also published a version back in the 70s. Their box more closely resembles the older US Games versions. The color tones on The Magician's face is more orange on the older ones. The newer ones have more of a flesh color (see picture). His clothing is also more orange in the older versions too, while it is more red in the newer ones. The front of the Weiser LWB is identical to the US Games with the exception of the name and address.

As for the blue box version, here is a picture of the Waddington/Rider version. There is another version that is Rider only but I don't have it. If you do have one to compare, you can see that the color of the wreath is darker on the Rider only version. Here is a picture of the side of the Rider/Waddington box with its information.

I'm sure there are many other things, but these are tried and true methods that I use and will go a long way in helping with identification.

 

[The crowned one]

This is great. Thank-you.