The Enchanted Tarot story
Review time! Short version: beautiful images, garbage quality product – needs work.
Long version:
First of all: wow. It's gorgeous. You can see the work and love poured into it. Each card is a photograph of a physical work of textile art. Like collage decks, it can look a bit busy, but most of that comes from patterns, rather than an onslaught of distinct elements and symbols – the scenes are actually quite simple and clear. I love the color palette (predominantly shades of violet, blue, and pink, with some others here and there, so can be a little same-y), and the fact that the images use big playing card symbols in their backgrounds to signify which suit they are. The suit color-coding borders are oh one hand helpful, on the other – humongous, making the deck nigh unusable. I'd wager most people would have a difficult time handling it as-is. Also one of the guillotine edges cutting the tarot sheets of my particular deck must have been a bit blunt, because each card had a rough curved lip around it. It made the cards catch on each other and chip during shuffling.
Speaking of cardstock – my god is it flimsy. It's the first time I've considered re-backing a deck. Or rather re-fronting, as I'm going with a clear foil to save the images from damage as much as possible. It's already much better after trimming. The smaller surface area makes it less bendy, and the new edges don't have the curved lip. But the paper is still very soft, touch a fingernail to it and it leaves a dent, so just to be safe I'll give it a layer of contact paper.
I've left their little black borders on, because I feel such busy images do need to be somewhat contained, but that means rounding the corners won't look good, so I'm going with pointy for now. If I mess up the foiling I might re-purchase it at some point in the future and try again, with a tighter trim and rounded corners. In this trimmed version, the color palette becomes even more prominent (no oranges or greens of the big borders – I like it, it's more cohesive), and the playing card symbols become even more useful.
Overall, I wouldn't recommend this deck if you're not into modding. I would have liked to see a properly produced version, seeing as it's the 25th anniversary edition, something more grand somehow. It does come with a satiny drawstring bag and a full color guidebook – cute and very well thought out, with different ways of looking at the card, it even provides little rituals based on each card's message. If you don't mind or even enjoy modding, taking on this deck could be a very satisfying project.
Note: since drafting this post I have indeed successfully laminated the cards. The process was relatively quick and the cards didn't gain much bulk. Having arrived at the deck's final dimensions was also able to craft it a special box.
