beautiful pip decks with completely different vibes. visconti-sforza is the one i already used and loved plenty. old gold, muted reds and greens, the most classic deck there is, in a way. matches the changing colors of autumn and the feeling of impermanence, things fading away - like the powerful families that commissioned these early hand painted masterpieces.
i admit i was influenced to buy the polish tarot. i don't really keep up with polish publications, but one of the few tarot youtubers i follow showed it off and i took the plunge. it's a very vivid pip deck, very colorful with rich jewel tones and wacky patterns reminiscent of 80s arcade carpeting... it's fun to look at and the pips are very creative, there's a lot to go off of.
originally i had a hard time reading with it. the illustrations in the pips didn't seem to hint at any particular system so it felt a little bit like trying to read an oracle deck (yuck). i don't usually like decks that i have to learn, as much as i romanticize doing a "deck study" in a dedicated journal. it's either standard enough RWS to not need it, or "blank" enough (like some pip decks) to not interfere in my own system. i tend to Not Use other decks, no matter how beautiful or alluring (voyager, my beloved...)
last week i started a bit of a project (slightly delayed by increased art activity) wherein i'll try to go through all the cards and see if it's possible to square the image with my system, even in the remotest way. so far i've done around 25 cards, so roughly 1/3 of the deck. it's looking promising and it might be enough to keep the deck from the chopping block, but i'm not sure it'll enter the top tier.
mostly because it is also one of the Grody decks. even worse, the ink is clearly coming off the edges, there's now an irregular white border around the implied-gold-ish frame of the images. somehow the gunk annoys me less in this circumstance - it's not just Dirty, it's visibly Used, so dirt is to be expected. and even despite the gunk i've been using this one more than the visconti-sforza so far (took the decks out in the last week of september). probably mostly due to the size - the v-s is the second largest deck i've ever owned. i don't really remember the name of the biggest one, only that it came with a jungian book, but the cards were approaching a5 in size. i imagine they were intended purely for altar work?? anyway, the v-s works best in a line for me, but i'm still stuck on my versatile 2x3 spread and it suits a smaller deck better, so that might be the biggest influence for now. still plenty of time for things to change.
