Pamela Colman Smith Commemorative Set

After the disgraceful act of deliberately defrauding the public by releasing what was essentially an 1929 bootleg by an inferior artist and calling it "The Original RWS Tarot" it was going to be a cold day somewhere in the Major Arcana's before I put any money into Stuart Kaplan's pockets again.However that being said the promise of a book full of Pamela Colman's art was too tempting even for me so I positively threw myself on the bait hook for this one! That part of this set is really what redeems an otherwise mediocre effort to make some more cash by using a sensationalist title such as "The Pamela Colman Smith Commemorative Set". With a few Postcard size reproductions of the artwork printed on stiff card, ideal for framing, as well as what is in the book I am glad that I bought this item. The written content of the book is somewhat disappointing though and seems to have been written as an excuse for S. Kaplan to keep boasting about his extensive private collection of PCS artwork and Card Packs. If it is an actual life history of Pamela Colman Smith you are looking for there are much more informative PDF files dealing with the history of the Rider Smith Tarot and the life of PCS for you download for free.The second book is yet ANOTHER butchered version of A.E. Waite's "The Pictorial Key To The Tarot" that has been poorly photocopied with all the pictures removed (!) We all know about this one and what he thinks of his fellow Tarot enthusiasts so the only other thing I will add here is to be careful with this because it feels like it could physically fall apart at any moment while being read.SO now we have the Cards themselves. Regrettably there are clear quality control issues here as what we have is a very patchy affair indeed. On the plus side the cards haven't been coated with layers of plastic varnish so there is a noticeable reduction in shine but the print quality on each card goes from passable to appalling and everything in between. Obviously the cards have been contracted out to different printing companies with no agreement between any of them as to what they were trying to produce - Some show the very different color scheme of the early R/W Tarot backs while others look like they were done on an early Eighties Dot Matrix Printer. Some have nice neat borders and others have horribly off-center and blurry overlaps where nobody has even bothered to line up the shots properly before hitting the print button. OH - and each of the cards has that damn annoying Copyright notice printed on the face of them too!Considering the obvious consideration and time spent on the presentation box I am baffles as to why there is no box included for the cards themselves, instead we have the cheapest and nastiest Light Blue synthetic, scratchy net bag that fell apart in my hands when i trice to put the cards in them.In conclusion - This offering is more Box than Content that really could have been something special but I give it a Three for the Artwork of PCS.

Must have for Waite/Rider Deck collectors/Users, I love Pamelas Colmans & A.E Waites Decks and this is the deck I've been looking for, The commemorative set is so well laid out and stylish I couldn't beleave how well its presented. Its comes with the commemorative Coleman & Waire Tarot deck which is the original print of the 1909 deck and the best version of the Tarot deck. Also it comes with a book about P.Colman and her work and A.E.Waite's book the Pictorial Key to the tarot. Its also comes with art postcard prints a tarot card layout sheet and art poster prints. My collection ended when I bought this... Well for now :)WARNING!! I didnt notice this at first but the Waites Pictorial Key to the Tarot that comes with this set has misprints in it, the book it self would have been the best print of the book ive seen if only for one they put the Tarot picture prints in the book which isnt the biggest deal since you have the actual deck but even still. Also another problem is the chapter Contents at the start of the book is missing a section 'a history to the tarot' which is in the book just not listed on the contents also in the 'trumps major and their innner simbolism' section later in the book there is a page completly missing, its the page with the description of the No21 'The World' major trump. I noticed this straight away as I read through 1st time but luckly I have another version of the book, so word of warning Great Tarot And P.coleman set but if your looking to read the 'The Pictorial key to the Tarot' buy another cheap print on the side.

I havent always loved the Rider Waite Smith deck. To be honest, once I realised there were other good decks out there, my copy fell to the very bottom of my reading pile.But when I saw the scans of this reprint.. I am blow away by the deck! The deck itself has a little tint to the deck, to make it look older, but also in sympathy for the first print of the deck. It looks and feels much better to me, that olde feeling of a deck that really is 100 years old and works with Colman Smith's artwork.As well as the deck you get 2 books. One is the pictorial key to the tarot by Arthur edward waite and the artwork and times of pamela colman smith by Stuart Kaplan. Kaplan's book has lots of scans from PCS's artwork and anything he can find connected to her and her life. Its a wonderful book and such an insight into the forgotten artist of this deck.There is also a little blue bag for the deck and sheet with 3 spreads on.All in all this set is wonderful and well worth the money. The presentation box, 2 books, deck, bag and spread poster is just amazing for the price of about £23 and this is owning part of Tarot history.I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Wow, what can I say... Yesterday I wrote a review about the Sola Busca Tarot which was described as a museum quality kit and I was disappointed, it only got 4 stars. Today I am writing a review about the Pamela Colman Smith Commemorative set and I am blown away by the quality, the presentation, the reproduction and the content of this kit. The colours and print mimic the originals very closely, the cards are printed on good quality stock, they are a good size which makes them easy to hold and the coffret is well designed to accommodate two books, a number of postcard size images and the pack of cards. Added to that there is a nice little bag to hold the cards together. Very pleased.

First of all, this is a really lovely set and the books, postcards etc are very interesting. It's nice for Pixie to finally get the recognition she deserves.Unfortunately, the first set I received had printing errors on four of the cards; severe creases and smudged ink which must have happened before the laminate was applied (see picture). Thankfully Amazon sent out a replacement the next day and the new set is fine.So just a word of warning to check everything over! Hopefully the first set was just a dud but sharing in case there could be a wider printing issue to watch out for.