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This tarot deck is perfect for beginners, experts, & collectors alike. This happens to be one of my personal favorite takes on the the 1909 classic art of Pamela Coleman Smith. Not only is it unique, and vibrant- each suit has the color variation based on it’s element. Example: The swords suit is represented with yellows for the element of air.The card stock has held up nicely with heavy use, and after hundreds of clients mine shows very minimal wear. Although I am still tempted to buy a back up copy, because I love it that much! I find it is equally good for both riffle shuffling, and over hand shuffling once broken in.If you are on the fence, I truly can’t recommend this enough! And please oh please bring back the mini version, because we all need that too :). Happy reading!!!I really love the art of this deck but the cards feel very thin and bend very easily. They're also very slippery, which any Tarot reader knows is the worst thing. Still recommended as good deck to learn with or have as a collectors item, just know that if you use this deck at a reading the cards might slide around everywhere.Historically Important But A Little Messy:This deck is my travel deck, it lives in my purse and is the type of tarot deck I let anyone touch or play with and use it for readings on the fly; at the very reasonable prince of 14.99 this deck serves my purposes perfectly. I carry this deck around with me instead of one of the hundred of other Waite/Smiths I could carry because I love the bold, garish, psychedelic coloring. I’m a fan of anything psychedelic and late 60’s, and this deck gives me Peter Max Summer of Love Type Vibes.However, this deck is re-print of the long out-of print 1968 version of The Albano-Waite, and as such, looks a little bit like someone photocopied a photocopy.The art isn’t as sharp as I would like- there is some bleeding of the colors and blurred line work, which is a real real real shame as this deck used the “Pam A” line work which, in my opinion, is preferable to the other “Pam’s”.If you are a collector, I would recommend searching for a “real” version of this deck online, as I believe you will be disappointed in the card stock quality and the printing.If you are new to tarot this deck is uses Pamela Coleman Smith’s original line art but was recolored in 1968 by some guy named Frank Albano; if the coloring suits your taste and sensibilities this is an inexpensive deck that you could learn with in place of the Original Rider Waite Smith.The backs are white and feature a small blazing sun contained within a rectangle, but are non-reversible. The card stock is standard U.S. Games, and this deck comes in a utterly worthless tuck box.For Tarot Enthusiasts like myself: I have read tarot for almost 15 years. I’ve seen tons and tons of tarot decks, but none more so then variations on Pamela Cole Smiths original art. Her line work has been recolored, re-issued, spruced up, stripped down, blah, blah, blah. I love (and own!) a great number of those decks (Centennial Waite, Radiant-Wise Spirit Tarot, Universal Waite, etc,) this deck SCREAMS personality. There are bold purples, reds, midnight blacks, lime greens, mint greens, oranges, yellows. Temperance and the 10 of Cups are flanked by full color rainbows. These May not be for all but may be just right for you.Also, it was 14.99. There are decks three times that on this market place that are half baked at best.Last Thing: Frank Albano did not draw this art. From what I understand he recolored it and published this deck. When I talk about how much I love this deck I am speaking not just of Mr. Albano’s inspired re-coloring but also Pamela Coleman Smith’s timeless art.I am a RWS deck collector and have to say this one makes a wonderful addition to my special friends! DO NOT LISTEN TO NEGATIVE REVIEWS. The colors are so vibrant with a great retro 1960s feel. The energy of the deck is also great! I just opened it and have not had time to leave it to charge on my alter and do all that I do but just flipping through them I could feel the energy! If you LOVE RWS decks like I do I highly recommend this deck!I love the card stock but I was disappointed in the printing quality (I should have read the reviews). I actually gasped in horror at a few of the cards like Judgement and Death for their blurriness which is sad because those are two of my favorite cards. The 8 of swords has a blotchy pea-green background that doesn’t match the light yellow of the rest of the suit. The same goes for the 5 of cups, it’s a much brighter and blotchier green than the rest of the cups. The Devil has two horizontal lines that I noticed immediately. I actually really like the green background of the pentacles and the burnt orange of the wands though. The Queen of Pentacles and The Lovers are really beautifully colored so I’m definitely on the fence about returning it. I’ll probably keep it just for the coloration and smooth card stock and try to get over the rest.I wanted to add to my original review after using this deck for a few weeks. I love this deck now!! It shuffles like butter, gives very clear meanings and the colors really pop together in spreads. I don’t notice the blurriness of the line work anymore. I grab for it all she time now!!This is one of my favourite all time tarot decks and I do own quite a few. Some people describe the colours as garish; while they are vivid I feel they actually heighten the connection I make with the artwork. Plus, the colours in the background of the minors do have an occult rationale - they weren't randomly chosen. Worth also remembering, this deck originally came out in the late '60s when psychedelia was all the rage.I recently bought a new copy of this deck (November 2017); the latest printing has gone back to nice matte cardstock - the slippy heavily laminated cardstock from circa 2006 - 2016 is no more.If you like the RWS but find bright vivid colours better for increasing your intuitive capacity then give the Albano a try.On the left in the photos is the current 1991/1996 deck as sold here, printed in Italy. On the right is the 1987 printed in Belgium deck. While both decks are slick and good to handle, featuring the same gold-sunrays-on-white back design, the print quality of the newer deck as sold here is not good; at least not the one I bought. It's not the colours but the line-drawing detail that is lost on the newer deck. Admittedly the 1987 deck is not great on some of the cards; but the newer deck has a feeling of being a scan of a scan, which I don't get from the older deck. Two stars, as printed on good stock and nicely cut as their decks usually are.This is the printed in Italy deck so some cards are slightly blured. The Cardstock is quite good. It's been said before but the deck does actually look like a photo copy of a photo copy!...Still worth having if you can't get your hands on a better printing. Plenty of room in the box !This deck, sadly, is garbage. Given its plain back and its colors staying truest to card meanings, I thought I'd give this a go. Big mistake, especially for the cost. Imagery is blurred, card quality is terrible... the cards border on unreadable... This may be down to different qualities, as I had seen reviews commenting on the quality of the imagery... Sadly mine was not the case, and while I have had to open them to find this out, they are double sealed, box first, then the cards, I will be attempting to return them as the quality is unacceptable.A brilliant deck to work with, the colours are just amazing.
