Mary Packard's Tdm Kit

[HermitWriter]

Hello tarot fam! This may be old news, but I haven't seen it posted here. Books-A-Million has Mary Packard's TdM kit for $24.95. This looks to be the same one that came out a few years ago, and is currently listed on Amazon for over $80, but it's been repackaged in a box similar to her Golden Tarot (Visconti-Sforza). It says it's still a reproduction of the Madenie TdM, and has the book and bag in it. I'm not sure if this was a well-received variant, but I figured I'd pass the info along. The BAM near me had four on the shelf on Friday. I may grab one and check it out; if so, I'll probably leave a review here or on my blog.

 

For those of you who don't have a BAM nearby, the kit is listed as available on their site here.

[Guest]

I hadn't seen thi yet either, so I looked it up on amazon and found this customer review:

 

Quote

The box looks great. The packaging is excellent. But sadly, this is a far cry from the Madenié Tarot de Marseille. It's nowhere even close to the original Madenié as depicted in the French facsimile by Yves Renauld. The card stock is flimsy, the gloss finish is ugly, and the colors are very disappointing. The 'little white book' is a big blue book with references to things entirely irrelevant to the Marseille Tarot .. the Kabbalah, Lenormand. On the whole, this is entirely disappointing.

It's certainly great that the Marseille Tarot is gaining more interest in the US. And it would be great if a good edition of the Marseille Tarot was available here. Unfortunately, this is not it. Fortunately there are wonderful versions of the Marseille Tarot available from France, Israel, Japan, Italy, and Argentina. No doubt, elsewhere as well. Google will help you find them.

Revised: I hate to give a negative review. Especially a deck based on the Madenie Marseille Tarot. So I'mraisin my review from 2 to 4 stars. I took these cards off the shelf to revisit them and have to say that although I wouldn't use them for readings they are much nicer than they seemed on first impression. Good size, nicely antiqued. I much prefer Yves Ranaud's much more accurately rendered version, but this is not bad at all.

 

[HermitWriter]

I saw that review too, and I can't say I disagree with any of it, especially based on the unboxings and YouTube walkthroughs I found. I'm still pretty on the fence about it, TBH, especially if the book that comes with it isn't particularly useful. I'm also not a fan of the faux-aging that has apparently been applied to the cards. However, it is about $10 cheaper that the Reynaud version, not factoring in shipping from France to the US. I might still consider trying it if I land a spot at next year's local Ren Faire. I love reading with my Madenie, and this might be a way to do public readings with that deck.

[Guest]

Or just use Reynaud's. His decks really are made to be used, and they're impressive. Would you really want to pick up a kit just to recycle/discard half of it (book/packaging)?