This oversized tarot deck is one of the newer offerings available, and it is a very interesting deck indeed.  I would classify this as an art tarot.  It certainly is very artistic.  I know that sounds like a copout, but the style of art used here is very basic, least-common-denomenator, minimalist in style.  There is somewhat of a collage effect that adds to the whole thing.

Being German in design, the deck follows traditional Crowley-style order and titling.  I have found this to be true of all decks of German design.  The titles are consistent across the board.  Each image is "floated" on top of a highly textured brown stone-looking background.  Arabic numerals grace each card, but are inobtrusive.  Titles appear in white at the bottom, in both German and English.

As stated above, in the Major Arcana, cards bear traditional titles and order according to the Thoth model.  Justice is 8 and Strength 11.  The Fool is placed at the end of the Majors instead of at the beginning as is usual with the Waite model.  Some of the cards do not feature specific human figures and of those that do, the person is not necessarily prominent in the image.  More emphasis is placed on symbolism than in many decks.

In the Minor Arcana, I found an inconsistent appearance of the court cards, in that some of them were repeated imagery from suit to suit, but not all, so that you can't really work on an expectation of them being the same, yet you aren't free to work on them all as being different, either.  Traditional suits of Wands, Cups, Swords and Coins are used, and courts are Page, Knight, Queen and King, varying now from the Crowley model that was adhered to in the Majors.  Numbered cards are richly textured and detailed pip cards.  Suit symbols are imaginatively pictured.

The large size of this deck makes it difficult for all but the largest hands to shuffle comfortably.  The edges are buffed to a smooth finish and the coating is moderately shiny and slippery but would probably wear fairly well.  The little white booklet which comes with the deck is fairly substantial for its kind, but spends a lot of time discussing things like "Rules of the Game" and "Fundamental Contents and Symbols" and so the divinatory meanings don't end up being much more in depth than usual.  I read through it three times but could find NO spreads or layout instructions at all.

I would not recommend this deck for the beginner, because much of the vital information to start out with is missing or glossed over in the booklet and the cards are not full scenes.  Experienced readers will see more intuitive feelings imaged here rather than actual event scenes.  The collector will enjoy the artwork on these cards, and their large size makes them an excellent coffee table deck.  Serious students will like comparing the symbolism in these cards to what they are familiar with in other decks.

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Review Copyright 1998 by Gina M. Pace

Basic Tarot by Gudrun Dobratz, 1997
published by AGM AGMuller, ISBN 3-905219-27-1