Complete Tarot Cards
 
This set of Rider-Waite clone cards (literally!) was produced by B. Shackman & Co.  It doesn't have a copyright date on it, but it does say on the box "No. 1961 Printed in Hong Kong"  Since US Games owns the copyright to the Rider-Waite design and is the exclusive licensor of that deck, I would assume this deck had to be published in 1961.  However, the box looks new and the cards inside also looked new.  So I don't know.
 
Essentially this deck takes the Rider-Waite images and renders them in brighter tones a la Albano-Waite and then prints them sloppily so that the colors kind of run all over each other, blurring detail.  The cards are smaller than your standard Rider-Waite which is kind of a plus for some people.  The images are joined with lines of text on each card giving the meanings of the cards so you don't have to look them up.  The meanings given are worse than any I have ever seen and I plain flat out disagree with most of them.  They don't even match the little white booklets I've read anywhere.  They are very fortunetellerish.  I would be afraid to use these cards in front of clients for fear of my reputation, that's how cheesy these are.
 
Since it is a Rider-Waite ripoff deck, you already know it's got the traditional titles and meanings, traditional suits and courts.  Nothing integral to the deck has been changed in any way.  Just the colors bleeding all over the place, and the meanings at the bottom.  The card stock is a stiffer one, and the edges are flat and could give a paper cut.  Corners are rounded.  The deck feels really light in the box, almost as if there are cards missing, an unusual by-product of the type of stock used.  Before I opened it I swore the box was half-empty.
 
The deck comes with two sheets of paper folded up inside the box.  One is a piece of 11 by 17 inch copy paper with a layout printed on it so you can lay the cards right on it.  To the deck's credit (maybe) the Celtic Cross is not featured.  A ten-card horizontal spread is used.  The other sheet of paper is a small folded set of instructions.  Half of this sheet is taken up with a miniature version of the layout sheet, as instructions for laying out.  This leaves four tiny paper faces for explanations of the cards.  The publishers obviously think the meanings on the cards are all that is necessary, since they don't waste any time explaining the cards in the folded sheet of instructions.  They just reprint the meanings from the cards.
 
I would not recommend this deck to anyone except a collector, as a novelty, or for those who specifically collect Rider-Waite versions.  I know several people who collect multiple printings of the Rider-Waite deck.  This will be one of the least interesting additions to such a collection.
 
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Review Copyright 1999 by Gina M. Pace
 
Complete Tarot Cards, 1961?
published by B. Shackman & Co, Inc.  NY