I've seen Tarot cards in the USPCC catalog. Does anyone know if these are on standard playing card stock and if so where can I order them from. Also if there are any gimmicked tarot decks out there or would I have to gaff them myself?

Cheers,
A

I have not bought Tarot cards from USPCC but I would ask their customer service. In terms of gimmicked tarot cards, I have see people do 'The Haunted Pack' with Tarot but you could easily make your own - I have been considering making Daniel Madison's 'Irreversible' deck with tarot.

I haven't seen them myself, but every Tarot deck I have seen are larger than Poker playing cards. Some wider.

But most card sleights can be used with them.

http://www.penguinmagic.com/specialorde ... hp?ID=5593

These are most likely the cards you are considering. I have a deck of them myself.

They are poker size, plastic coated, and the backs and faces are (obviously) one-way. The coating is actually not really that bad, and they will work with most sleights, as well as spread fairly well (better than any plastic-coated cards I have used, anyway). As far as the coating goes, they are about like Aviators, if you have used those.
The one-way backs could screw some things up, but if you are doing something in which that can be kept in control, or if it just doesn't matter, it'll be fine.
Aside from that, they come with instructions for tarot readings, which may be useful for what you are going to do, whatever that may be.
Each one has a small description on the front, as well as the playing card and tarot card represented.

So there you go. As for gimmick, you'd have to gaff these ones yourself. I don't know of any pre-gimmicked tarot decks.

At http://www.card-shark.de/index_e.cfm you'll find a cool looking Tarot Deck. The Ad Copy says that the backs are marked. Plus you can also buy an Extension Set with gaffed Cards. Both will run you about $60.00 Dollars. Sounds expensive, however take a look at the quality of their cards in this (PDF)
http://www.card-shark.de/bilder/Tarot-Overview-small.pdf

Thanks that sounds like some great stuff to check. One problem I was thinking of was most tarot decks I've come across are on very heavy duty stock, very thick; hard for sleights.

I have an actual tarot deck, and the cards are thinner than standard playing cards.
It really varies from deck to deck, however, most are about the thickness of regular cards, if not thinner.

Hmmm, I've had a couple and they've all been thicker. One of them is a fairly ancient Marseilles tarot deck and they're like beermats!

The Card Shark deck looks perfect!

Hi Folks, it´s me the Card-Shark.

Found this thread and wanted to let you know about the quality of my Tarot cards. I tried to get them printed by USPC (Bicycle) but they were not able to handle the size. They forwarded me to Fournier, Spain, their branch that can produce Tarot Decks. But they can only use this ugly Tarot paper stock.

Finally I ended up with my German playing card company, using the best quality card stock available that comes extremely close to Bicycle stock in look, feel and flexibility. Only the finish is different as the cards won't fan that well. But hey, they are more than 200 years old, it would look extremely suspicious if they would look old and fan well.

But if you still need to fan them perfectly, add a very little amount of fanning powder to it.

Christian "Card-Shark" Schenk

www.card-shark.de