Spellcaster Deck and Yes, Tarot Knockoffs

The title of the deck is a bit of a misnomer--it's just a regular Rider Waite with funky fun paintings and a really nice quality box and book (the book has *color* illustrations, which is unusual for these books). The titling font makes me laugh--there could have been an argument that the publisher wanted it all in caps, to match "Handbook"; but the font didn't fit at the point scale they wanted, so instead of going with another font, they did the Sarcasm Font from Twitter :D

If you like dogs this is your deck. Dogs are everywhere. There are lots of wonderful portraits, many squirrels, and some serious pot production (lower right corner, the 7 of Pentacles):

Every card has a full, glorious painting. This is my favorite:

This guy is definitely getting the tea from those birds. I also like the knight of cups, riding his fishy steed (slippery!!):

Though on the Two of Pentacles, I have to wonder what is in that bag.... :o

I told you squirrels were big in this deck:

Nobility Scon approves:

And now the sad thing that tarot cards and dolls have in common--theft of copyright. I was looking on Ebay for used, out of print decks and I kept seeing these inexpensive, quite pretty decks--turns out that they are indeed bootlegs. Since many of the decks are legitimately printed in China, it's all too easy to run a few thousand more, give them Chinese titling for the local market, and sell the extra English ones back on Ebay. They do have crazypants item titles "Fate Entertainment Cards of Tarot Rider" kind of titles, enough to get the search engine to pick it up for people looking for tarot decks, but not enough to exactly be in conflict with the real titles of these decks. I actually bought a Four Seasons deck before I realized this, it was titled "Wheel of Fortune" and it was something around seven dollars with shipping, which should have tipped me off. It's not here yet, but when it comes I will see what goes on with the boxing and quality. Here is an official notice from a printer of one of the classic Rider-Waite decks:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rider-Waite-ORIGINAL-Tarot-Card-Cards-Deck-78-Cards-REGULAR-size-Instructions-/301809381389?_trksid=p2349526.m4383.l4275.c10#viTabs_0

NOTE: Unfortunately over the past few months, the eBay marketplace has become flooded with CHEAP knockoffs of the Rider Waite Tarot Decks. These sellers were originally calling them "Rider Waite Tarot" in their listings and were subsequently removed by eBay for trademark infringement of the name. However they have recently began popping back up again. The manufacturer is currently looking into legal action to have them removed.

We purchased a couple of the pirated decks and they are simply TERRIBLE. You DEFINITELY get what you pay for! We sell the ORIGINAL, AUTHENTIC Rider Waite Tarot Decks, with full retail packaging and AUTHENTIC box. A few big tip offs to look for on the pirated knockoffs are:

* No UPC code or serial number on the bottom of the box

* Missing instructional card and other relevant cards

* Sellers who mention that there may be "color variations" in the cards(that's because they are printing them on their computer)

* Very strange chemical smell

* Sellers originating from China(check their feedback page at the top under their user id to see if they are registered in China---many times they will lie about their location), Hong Kong, New Jersey(USA), or Ukraine with an "unbelievably" low price(in the $9-$11 range, or less)
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For an art deck, it's best to go to the artist's own website like https://www.78tarot.cards/. (I want all the decks on this site, but I either have to sell something or earn some play money for them*). So far Amazon isn't bad for knockoffs if it's an official Amazon item. The key thing seems to be the price being $25 USD and up. 

You can also plug in "used" into the Ebay search engine--though older, used cards are often much more expensive than new ones, even legit decks. You can make your own as well, which I will discuss for another blog post.

*Update, I sold a body and bought the 78Tarot "Carnival" themed deck yesterday.