by Fergus Hall
(To purchase this tarot deck and help The Lycian Sanctuary click on its title or image.)
Boniface's Tarot Deck Review of
|
by Fergus Hall (To purchase this tarot deck and help The Lycian Sanctuary click on its title or image.) |
|
LIST PRICE: $15.00
ISBN: 0913866539
TYPE OF DECK: Original interpretation of the traditional Tarot deck.
ARTISTIC STYLE: Primitive painterly style with a look of the surreal due to the hands and feet of the figures being very small for the rest of the body; the coloring is bold.
DECK BOOKLET: 32 page booklet. There is some questionable material in the introduction about witches; it gets borderline as to accuracy and some of it seems just plain made up. The Celtic Cross spread is presented but is called "The Magick Circle of Solomon," I guess because this is supposed to be a witch's tarot deck.
BOOK: There is a book available for this deck but I have not read it. It's called, and it's quite a title, "The Tarot of the Witches Book : The Only Complete and Authentic Illustrated Guide to the Spreading and Interpretation of the Popular Tarot of the Witches" by Stuart R. Kaplan. (The booklet was written by Kaplan, so maybe a "grain of salt" is needed for his book as well?)
SHUFFLE-ABILITY: Fairly easy to shuffle. (7 x 11 cm)
QUALITY OF PRINTING: Very high quality. The cards have a plastic coating which makes them easy to handle and be kept in good condition.
ADDITIONAL SYMBOL SYSTEM: There is no additional symbol system added to those of the traditional deck. This deck was created for use in the James Bond movie: "To Live and Let Die" but there is nothing in the deck to associated it with the movie or 007 other than the copyright information card stating that it was featured in the movie.
ACCESSORIES / PACKAGE: The package is the standard "box with flap" type; adequate protection for the cards.
BEST POINTS: It's artistic style is very nice, especially if you like simplicity without losing meaningful symbols.
WORST POINTS: The "court cards" could have used a few more symbols; these tend to be a bit barren. Also, they could have done more research about witches for the booklet, for more accuracy.
REVIEWER'S COMMENTS: I like to read with this deck. The Major Arcana cards are not cluttered while retaining many symbols. Graphically, they are very strong in their impact and nicely colored. The colors carry symbolic meaning as well. The pip cards are of the abstract variety, difficult for people used to the scene depictions of some other decks. I personally prefer the numerically based pip cards because they do not restrict interpretations to a particular scene and meaning, although they do take longer to get acquainted with. Don't worry too much about the booklet, you don't need it to use the cards anyway, and the cards are excellent.
STARS 1 TO 5:
* * * *