About this item
- The Tarot Nova is a deck of 78 cards with vaguely Renaissance artwork of simplified Rider-Waite imagery centred on a
- black background. It's a cute gift shop tarot, and the cards are appropriate for children. There are two versions - one
- with tiny foldout cards, one with more regular sized cards.
Specifications
Name
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Tarot Nova
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Creators
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Dennis Fairchild,
Julie Paschkis
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Publisher
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Running Press 1999
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Deck Type
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Tarot Deck
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Cards
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78
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Major Arcana
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22
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Minor Arcana
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56
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Deck Tradition
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Mixed
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Minor Arcana Style
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Unique Scenes With Suit Symbols
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Suits
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Cups, Swords, Wands, Pentacles
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Court Cards
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Page, Knight, Queen, King
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The Fool
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is 0
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Strength
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is 11
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Justice
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is 8
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Card Language
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English
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Card Back
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Unknown
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Reviews
arcana), number and suit (or name), with a single vibrant
design in the card centre. Card backs are black with a
detailed, colourful design showing two people using cards,
crescent moons, sun, flowers and fruit. They are
reversible. The whole effect is very immediate and bright,
more so than you might guess from scans on the web,
where the contrast between the black background and
bright colours is not so intense.
The pictures are
simple, vivid and direct. Some of the images are
reminiscent of Rider Waite, for example, on the five of wands
two people fight with sticks, while standing on three
horizontal sticks. In some the imagery has been somewhat
changed, eg the three of swords shows a heart-shaped turnip
with a sword cutting off its leaves. I smiled when I
first saw that one. Others are less obvious, such as
the two of wands showing two sticks resting on the
back of a man whose head is se
t slightly apart from his
body. That one is definitely odd. Cards I like include
the crocodile on the five of pentacles and the overfed
man looking at a wormy apple on the four of cups.
I
would recommend this deck for tarot collectors and for
experienced readers who want something small, fun and
immediate. I'm not sure it would make a good deck for
meditation but it would be an amusing deck to share with
friends. Beginners might struggle with the lack of clues
in some of the pictures, eg the three of pentacles is
simply a ladder entwined with a vine on which grow three
pentacles. So it is not a deck you can read straight out of
the box unless you have some experience to draw
on.
My main feeling about the deck is surprise. Surprise
at some of the images, and surprise that what looks
like a cheap little deck can be such good value.
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