WHAT do you do with the EXTRA cards in Decks?

[greatdane]

OK, yes this is a talking TAROT thread, so it's about any extra cards you may get in a deck (like with the Pamela Colman Smith Commemorative in a tin), but really with ANY deck, Lenormand, oracle, the decks with EXTRA cards.

Do you USE them in your readings? Use them as bookmarks? In art work? I like the idea of putting them under glass on tables. I've even thought of doing a collage.

So when you get those extra cards, what are things you've come up with to do with them?

 

[Barleywine]

It depends on what form they come in. I undertstand that they originate as the two "extra" cards from a forty-slot printer's sheet. If they're blank, like in the Haindl tarot, I create a personal Significator card and an extra "reading" card with them (I'm a trained artist). If they're just advertising, I leave them in the box (or maybe "paper over" them with my own art as above). If they're alternate versions like the two extra Magus cards in my 1983 Thoth, I just leave them in the box as well, since I think there was a good reason why they didn't make it into the originally published deck.

 

[greatdane]

Interesting, Barleywine and cool about being an artist!

The only extras I have come across, not counting like advertising ones, are ones that one can use or not use. I'm not specifically speaking to like the extra man or woman cards in Lenormand, but you know when someone adds just an extra card or cards that have nothing to do with the original tarot, Lenormand cards, but one can use if they like? Maybe Lenormand is more known for this.

But in the Pamela Colman Smith Commemorative deck there were the two extra cards with her artwork and I thought cool, I must think of something to do with them as too nice to just leave in the box.

 

[MissChiff]

If they are alternative cards I leave them in the deck.. If they are extra I will use them as book marks.. I use to save them up and give them to my Granddaughter... She had her own deck with lots of new cards all the time..she older now and reads for herself and her friends...

 

[greatdane]

That is so cool, MissChiff!

I see your Granddaughter did not fall far from her Grandmother's tree ))

 

[Barleywine]

If they're "alternate take" cards and you like the alternative better than the "official" version, you could just substitute one for the other. But I do agree there's nothing "magical" about the number "78." If they're beautiful cards that are completely unrelated to the purpose of the deck, I might display them in some way on my desk (bookmark use would just hide them), or maybe they could be used in a talismanic way, like "witnesses" or "overseers" set above a spread (I'm reaching here, eh?)

 

[greatdane]

No, GOOD ONES, Barleywine!!

Well, except when I use as bookmarks they're probably viewed even more. I have a book usually ATTACHED to me and I use bookmarks A LOT (Kindle? what is this Kindle you speak of?)

 

[Brilliance]

I don't use them at all.

 

[greatdane]

So Brillance

you just leave in the box? Toss them?

 

[earthair]

Extra version cards of the Thothy and MRP variety I shuffle in with the rest of 'em
Cover type cards I store at start and end of the decks to help protect the others.