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"If you hear hoofbeats, think of a zebra." Paintings by Londa Marks (Febr. 26, 1952, in Marietta Ohio) The Londa Tarot arose from the displeasure of the designer with the already existing decks with which she couldn’t connect. Experiences from a past as a creative designing costumes and make up for a rock band and an interest for Native Americans ultimately led to the unusual design of the cards that show an otherworldly style varying from gothic to classic Italian. The images also reflect a typical early nineties feeling: a lot of Big Hair is shown while the figurines are somewhat elfin. A bit like David Bowie going Bold and the Beautiful. These extraordinary cards possess all the qualities necessary to become true cult tarot cards. 
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The Belline Oracle is a game conceived and drawn by EDMOND about 1845. The interpretation method and texts by the clairvoyant Belline. The Belline Oracle is a well-known game of cartomancy. It was probably created in the midst 19th Century by a famous French clairvoyant named Edmond Billaudot who predicted the future of illustrious French figures as Alexandre Dumas, Napoléon III and Victor Hugo. He is said to have been a disciple of Madame Lenormand, and it is also said that she created the images on the cards. That though, seems highly unlikely regarding the fact how many different versions of the ‘Lenormand cards’ exist. Besides, a set of Lenormand cards consists of 36 cards while the Oracle Belline has 53. However, there are certain resemblances. The Oracle is complimentary to Astrology as well as to Tarot  The origin of the Fortuna Playing Cards 169 is unclear to us. The design might be from early 1920, but since the deck has two jokers, the cards have probably been produced in the 1950 when the game Canasta became popular. Have been published by Waddington’s from London, are they maybe American or French (Ducale)? Were the meant for overseas export since the box is mentioning the word ‘Foreign’? We simply don’t know. Any feedback is welcome… The box, that shows some serious wear and tear, tells us that there are 53 cards, that are overall in reasonable good condition, and that one joker is enclosed. However, there are 52 cards, two jokers, two blanc cards with different colored retro’s and finally two extra Ladies (also with different coloring of the back). Maybe several incomplete decks were made into one. A mysterious deck of cards which musty appearance leads to fantasies of smoky bars and rough times where cards were being used not only for fun but also for divination. The Tarots of the Origins was published by Lo Scarabeo in 1991. The original artwork has been designed by Sergio Toppi. The images are made with ecoline (water coloring). This edition contains only the 21 cards of the major arcana and includes two leaflets, one describing the Tarot in general and the other offering the meaning of the cards in keywords. A later edition (which by now became also a collector’s item), was published in 2000 and contains also the 56 cards of the minor arcana. This very rare edition is clearly one of Lo Scarabeo’s earlier publications in that the presentation of the cards as well as the packaging is more luxury than later publications. This edition is part of Lo Scarabeo’s so called Art Tarots (Tarocchi d’Arte) and was printed by Fratelli Moglia, Torino. The images designed by Sergio Toppi show strong lines and archetypical images in a background of beautiful and inspiring coloring. The images show an almost shamanistic approach of the traditional symbolism of the tarot cards and, in doing so, provide the cards with a strong radiance of almost bilateral profoundness. The images of the Tarots of the Origins relate to unconscious wanting to connect love and solidarity throughout the world. A truly magnificent deck of cards! The Aquarian Tarot Deck was first published by Morgan Press in 1970. Eventually it was distributed by U.S. Games Systems, Inc. The cards were designed by David Palladini, an American illustrator born in Italy. The cards of the major arcana follow the sequence of cards as introduced by A.E. Waite, thus changing the numbers eight and eleven. In order to create a more modern version of the tarot, Palladini combined the symbols of the traditional Tarot with images borrowed from a combination of Art Deco and Art Nouveau styles. This resulted in a very stylish, though rather impersonal and flat design that might make interpreting the cards a little more complicated for the layman then less artsy cards.  Oswald Wirth was born on august 5, 1860 in Brienz, Switzerland. Around 1880 he went to Paris where he joined the army. After his military service, he worked both as an artist and accountant and got interested in the occult. He befriended the famous Italian artist and occultist Stanislas de Guaita. This friendship ultimately resulted in 1889 in the publication of the tarot deck Les 22 Arcanes du Tarot du Tarot dessinés a l’usage des initiés sur les indications de Stanislas de Guaita. (published by Georges Poirel). This was a limited edition of ca. 100 beautifully hand colored copies and is very rare. The exact quantity of this edition is somewhat unclear. It is interesting that another famous occultist from Fin de Siècle Paris, Papus, in the same period published (other)images of the cards of the major arcana of the tarot in his famous work Le Tarot des Bohémiens.  The Hermetic Tarot was published in 1979 by US Games Systems Inc. (copyright mentioned on the cards). The booklet shows a copyright of 1980. This first edition was printed in Spain by Fournier and distributed by US Games System Inc. We don’t know how big the first print run was, but according to the enclosed control paper, this one might be copy number 5618. The cards are printed entirely in black and white and the details and symbols in each card reveal many of the esoteric workings of the Secret Order of the Golden Dawn, which flourished around the turn of the century.  In 1929, Manly Palmer Hall, founder of the Philosophical Research Society (it still exists), compiled a tarot deck designed by J. Augustus Knapp. In this deck, like in many others, we will find Hebrew characters and French titles, close to the Tarot de Marseille (TdM). The sequence of the cards follows the traditional pattern: VIII is Justice (la Justice) and XI shows Strength. The cards of the Minor Arcana are not illustrated. The Meditation Symbols added to the design by Manly P. Hall are not explained. Their significance must be discovered by internal experience, expanding the meaning of the cards on which they appear.  ‘The Great Esoteric Tarot is the first true and wholy Spanish Tarot in origination and design – on the occasion of the 600th anniversary of the existing of playing cards in Europe’. Thus, wrote Heraclio Fournier in April 1976 in Vitoria, Spain.  The design of the cards by Luis Pena Longa resembles the standard TdM but is more colorful.
The major arcana cards are numbered and have titles in Spanish. Card number XIII, Death, is not numbered, probably because number 13 is considered an unlucky number. Astrological symbols and Hebrew letters have been assigned to the cards of the major arcana and the court cards. The minor arcana cards have numbers, but no titles. Etteilla, The Wigmaker Etteilla (1738-1791) born Aillette, was a barber by profession, who changed his name into Etteilla (spelled backwards, after the Hebrew tradition), when he became involved in occult thinking and, according to many, became a full-time fortuneteller.  Being a barber and a skillful wigmaker, he had little further education and not much experience with the philosophies of the more initiated. Nevertheless, he was gifted with a profound intuition (and a convincing fantasy). Contemporaries like Eliphas Levi, even believed that he came very near unveiling ‘The Real Secrets behind the Tarot’, but Levi also stated that his thoughts, when put into writing, were ‘obscure, wearisome, and in style even barbarous’.
Etteila was probably influenced by Comte Court de Gebelin (1728-1784), who led many occultists of those days to believe in the possible Egyptian roots of the Tarot. |