Temptation

Against all better judgement, I’ve bought a copy of the Tarot Universal Dali to sell at Tarot Chest. Why is this potentially a bad idea? Because it’s a very expensive deck and if it doesn’t sell, I’m going to feel a bit foolish. But I couldn’t resist. It has shiny gold edges. It comes in a furry red slipcase. And…it’s the Dali Tarot. It’s literally a work of art. It took me almost an hour to add it to the site this afternoon, mainly because I couldn’t stop flicking through the scans at taroteca. (Occupational hazard…I can’t tell you how many (wo)man hours we lose to that every year. )

Now I have the difficult task of seeing it on the shelf every day until someone buys it. And I’m not sure I possess the willpower required to let it just sit there. How long can I last? Will anyone save me? Or will I succumb to temptation and make it mine? Tune in again for the next exciting installment…

P.S. This is my favourite card. No, hang on. This one is. And this one.

Exciting Stuff!

Today I placed my first order with a new supplier for lots of lovely decks to add to the store, including the Mystic Faerie, the Llewellyn Tarot, the Sheridan Douglas, and the Pearls of Wisdom. There’ll also be some old favourites such as the Robin Wood and the Tarot de Paris (both of which I used to stock until my previous supplier decided they couldn’t be bothered any more), as well as a few decks I’d never even heard of until I flicked through the catalogue: Love is in the Earth Crystal Tarot anyone??? (Actually, I just did a search – seems it isn’t that unheard of so it must just be me.)

I’m also getting lots of new books – Tarot for Yourself by Mary Greer and Corinne Kenner’s Simple Fortunetelling with Tarot Cards to name but two – so I will be positively bursting at the seams with new stock. This tarotious bounty should arrive on Monday, so now the fun part’s over (i.e. choosing which decks to order), I’ve got to get cracking on adding it all to the site – the only downside to ordering twenty new items all at once. Well, except paying for it…

Bold Claims

As I was putting some stock away this evening, I found an oracle deck that I’d forgotten to add to the store. Fortunately, that doesn’t happen often…

The deck is the Celtic Oracle by John Matthews. Now, you may think this is just another oracle deck, but you’d be wrong. This deck will change life as you know it. As it says on the back of the box:

“you will gain a heightened understanding of yourself and your place in the world, as well as insight into your true direction in life. You will also learn how to integrate your inner and outer worlds and develop your latent shamanic skills and live in harmony with all creation.”

Wow, all that AND a deck of cards for only £17.99? Sounds too good to be true…

8 Things

Did you know that when you order from Tarot Chest, you get a FREE, no-strings-attached, downloadable direct to your desktop, all singing all dancing E-book entitled “8 Things To Do With Your New Deck”?

Oh you did? Well, that’s good, cause I’d forgotten. In fact, I only remembered this morning when I was planning how best to get to know my new Phantasmagoric Theater Tarot which should be arriving soon.

It reminded me of a party I threw (the 1st Thing in the E-book) when I got the Medieval Scapini. It was a complete disaster. Never again will I invite that godawful family from the 7 of Wands to anything. And as for the widows from the 10 of Swords….they completely killed the mood with their wailing and moaning. In the end, I think the whole thing had to be broken up by the police.

But, boy, it was a lot of fun.

   

Straight Shootin’

As someone who rates the Haindl Tarot very highly, I’m clearly contradicting myself when I say that I prefer decks that don’t beat around the bush. We see images everyday – in roadsigns, adverts, photographs, films – which can convey a message, idea, or emotion in the blink of an eye. So why is it that so many tarot decks (which by necessity must communicate their messages through images alone) insist on being ambiguous?

The reason for this post is that I’ve just finished doing a little housekeeping at the store (yes, more housekeeping….what next, baking??) and for the first time in ages, I stumbled across the images for the Phantasmagoric Theater Tarot. Although I’ve always found the idea of this deck intriguing, I haven’t really paid it that much attention (dismissing it as the ‘Rugrats’ tarot). Yet, tonight, the 2 of Cups card caught my eye:

Now, I suppose if you wanted to, you could try and read all sorts of things into the strange mouth apparatus, the ‘noughts and crosses’ eyes, the nudity, the separate shapes of the cups. But, really, there’s no need to do all that. When I saw this image, the thought that popped into my head was ‘two peas in a pod’. There. Simple as that. That’s the 2 of Cups in a nutshell. Does it really need explaining further?

Then there are cards like this:

That card is from the Tarot of the Spirit. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a perfectly fine card. It’s quite attractive, very watery, and – given a few moments contemplation – probably quite meaningful. But it just doesn’t get the message across like the previous card. Reading tarot doesn’t have to be difficult (I say this a lot; I’m thinking about getting a t-shirt printed). Remember: a picture is worth a thousand words.

Anyway, that’s my little rant of the day. Guess who’s seriously thinking about getting the Phantasmagoric Theater now?

New Decks

One of the best things about owning a tarot shop is getting new decks. Today I got three: the Angel Tarot and the Women’s Tarot - both from AGMuller – and the Vision Tarot, by Tim Thompson and published by Carta Mundi. On the other hand, one of the most frustrating things about owning a tarot shop is getting new decks and not being able to rip the cellophane off and take a look at the cards. The most I get to see are the tiny pictures on the side of the boxes….for the time being, anyway.

It doesn’t help that AGMuller have suddenly become ridiculously coy. The description on the back of the box of the Angel Tarot is exactly the same as that on the Women’s Tarot. And neither of them give you any clue about what the decks are like. It may be that the cellophane will come off sooner than I think…

      

Like hot cakes…

It probably won’t surprise any of you to know that the best-selling tarot deck of all time at Tarot Chest is the Original Rider Waite. Or that the Gilded Tarot comes a close second. Those are just a couple of the very interesting statistics I’ve uncovered whilst clicking around in the website database (so that’s what it’s there for). What I’d like to talk about though is the Modern Medieval Tarot which – in a few short months – has become the fastest-selling tarot deck ever in the history of the world. Okay, not the world. Just in the history of Tarot Chest (but that’s really splitting hairs, don’t you think?).

Created by Shayn Amber Wetherell and Tim Wetherell and published by AGMuller, the deck combines medieval sensibilities with digital artwork (hence the title). I’ll be honest: my first reaction was along the lines of, “oh dear, that’s just not nice at all”. But having had a look at all the cards, I can start to appreciate it. It’s an honest deck. The photographic images are down-to-earth and friendly – they feature REAL people don’tcha know – and there’s something very ‘6th Form art project’ about it all, like the creators and all the people featured in the deck had FUN making it. And some cards really are lovely – I especially like the Wheel of Fortune and the 5 of Coins. Although I don’t think it’s one I’ll be adding to my collection, I do hope it does well.

Free 2-card reading with every order?

Everytime I send an order out at Tarot Chest, I include a couple of sample cards from different decks. If you were to order from us at the moment, you’d get a card from the Tarot of a Moon Garden and one from the Cosmic Tarot (a new favourite of mine). The Tarot of a Moon Garden has a colourful, nocturnal feel – kind of like you’d stepped into a magical ‘otherworld’. It’s full of dragonflies and unicorns and all sorts of fantasy elements. The Cosmic Tarot is a difficult deck to describe as it seems to span a whole range of influences – from Spanish nobility and early 20th-Century cinema to 1980s pop chic and new age mysticism. But despite these different influences it manages to keep a consistent style and gives very direct readings.

I always pick the cards at random from their boxes, but it has been interesting how many customers have commented on receiving ‘just the right cards’. I swear it’s nothing to do with me. But it does make me curious about all the combinations that get sent out and whether they really could be ‘messages from the universe’

     

Images © U.S. Games Systems, Inc.