The Tarot of the Tattoo Age is a collaborative deck featuring 77 different artists from around the World. There are 79 cards in the deck with a little white book. And what is pretty cool about the deck is that there are two interpretations of The Fool. One is pretty full on.
I am not a huge fan of collaborative Tarot decks and my main reason for this is that there is no cohesive aesthetic to the deck when you have 77 different artistic flavours in one place.
I went through the deck and I divided it into three piles, one was cards that I liked, one was cards that I really liked (either for the art alone or the artist interpretation of the card) and one pile was cards that I didn’t like. (mostly just for the art).
I didn’t like 33 cards in this deck, I liked 34 and I really liked 11. That is a lot of cards that I didn’t gel with. For this reason alone I would probably never read with this deck. It would totally throw me.
In saying that there is some awesome art in the deck and I know art is incredibly subjective and just cause I don’t like something doesn’t mean other people won’t find the collection amazing.
So I have scanned some of the cards I wanted to write about.
The King of Swords is rather charming but again, very distant to what that Card usually means but I do like the look of the card. The 7 of Wands is pretty great, there is something a little Monkey Magic to it. The third image is what the back of the cards look like.
It is a dark deck, the pallet is rather dark. Lot of black lines which runs with the Tattoo theme so that is done really well. There are cards that reflect shading Tattoos that are in just black and white and they are pretty effective cards.
The little white book is very simple it has the title of the card, the artist and some key words. There is nothing else. So if you do use this deck for readings there is a great opportunity to have your own interpretations of the cards and to really develop something for yourself with the beautiful artwork
The card stock is really good, glossy laminated. My box was a little damaged in the post on the way to me but that is about all I can complain about.
The card sizes are larger than normal Tarot decks, at 9cm x 13cm but they are easy to handle and shuffle.
Overall it is not a bad deck at all and it is a great addition to my lil collection it is just not for me personally.
Website to purchase: tarotofthetattooage.com
