Last week I was amazed to receive a very thoughtful gift from my Masonic and ‘Off Broadway’ friends for my 60th Birthday. They had taken the time to find a copy of the first edition of the Thoth Tarot Deck published by Samuel Weiser in conjunction with Llewellyn in 1973.
The back of the cards bears the Rosicrucian Cross, as made famous by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
These early printings carry two errors which instantly identify them as belonging to the first edition. In the first case, the number ‘8’ is missing from the Eight of Cups card; and in the second, the ‘Ace of Disks is printed upside down’.
I must admit this outpouring of kindness has spurred a renewed interest in Tarot Cards from the 1970s in me. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my first Tarot Deck (alongside the Rider-Waite deck) wa the Alfred Douglas deck, and the second the Aquarian Deck. I have now located a first edition of the Aquarian Deck and it is on its way to me. Next will be the Douglas deck, and then my teens will be complete!
Sadly, I had parents who were not quite so interested in my pursuits. They moved house in the 1980s, leaving behind (or perhaps throwing out) my Tarot decks, along with all my files from my days in Oxford and Cranfield Universities. Sigh….
