Review by Fairyhedgehog
This small, very inexpensive tarot deck looks like
a toy but is in fact a "real" tarot deck.
I have
seen the deck reviewed online as the Tarot Nova in
either a tiny edition with cards attached as a perforated
sheet, or as a Fortune Telling Kit. The edition I have is
called "Tarot the Complete Kit" and comes packaged with a
small book and a "spread sheet".
The cards are very
small for tarot cards (2 5/8th in by 3 1/16 in or 66mm x
80mm) which makes them easy to handle. The cardstock is
thin and flexible and the cards are very shiny and
slightly sticky rather like the Glastonbury Tarot.
Shuffling will not be easy with these cards.
The major
arcana follow Rider Waite traditions for the most part,
although Strength is 11 and Justice is 8. Suits are cups,
wands, swords and pentacles.
Each card has a black
background, coloured corners to show the suit (or major
arcana), number and suit (or name), with a single vibrant
design in the card centre. Card backs are black with a
detailed, colourful design showing two people using cards,
crescent moons, sun, flowers and fruit. They are
reversible. The whole effect is very immediate and bright,
more so than you might guess from scans on the web,
where the contrast between the black background and
bright colours is not so intense.
The pictures are
simple, vivid and direct. Some of the images are
reminiscent of Rider Waite, for example, on the five of wands
two people fight with sticks, while standing on three
horizontal sticks. In some the imagery has been somewhat
changed, eg the three of swords shows a heart-shaped turnip
with a sword cutting off its leaves. I smiled when I
first saw that one. Others are less obvious, such as
the two of wands showing two sticks resting on the
back of a man whose head is set slightly apart from his
body. That one is definitely odd. Cards I like include
the crocodile on the five of pentacles and the overfed
man looking at a wormy apple on the four of cups.
I
would recommend this deck for tarot collectors and for
experienced readers who want something small, fun and
immediate. I'm not sure it would make a good deck for
meditation but it would be an amusing deck to share with
friends. Beginners might struggle with the lack of clues
in some of the pictures, eg the three of pentacles is
simply a ladder entwined with a vine on which grow three
pentacles. So it is not a deck you can read straight out of
the box unless you have some experience to draw
on.
My main feeling about the deck is surprise. Surprise
at some of the images, and surprise that what looks
like a cheap little deck can be such good value.
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