To some extent. Traditional Tarot decks have the same card suits and values and Arcana. But how the suits are depicted varies.
For example, I have two Tarot decks. One uses a variation of the Rider-Waite pictures. The Rider-Waite depictions were created about 100 years ago and have become more or less the standard from which all modern decks spring. My R-W deck happens to have the card meanings printed on the cards so you don't have to refer to a book for every meaning while you're learning.
My other deck is called "Girlfriends' Tarot." The pictures are cute and modern, sword are replaced by pens and rods with parasols, cups are tea cups and pentacles (coins) are flowers. The deck has the advantage of being in a hard shell box with a small explanation book and the whole thing is about the size of a fist, so it slips into my purse without getting battered. Clearly, it's not a deck a guy would feel comfortable carrying, but it works for me.
I found a website a few months ago that rates the quality of the
various Tarot decks out on the market. Not all of them are complete
sets for some reason. A few are art decks that only contain the Major
Arcana (Cards 0-XXI). The Rider-Waite decks are the most common and
thus usually the least expensive, though no tarot deck will be as
cheap as traditional playing cards.
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Elise Dee Beraru
www.elisedeeberaru.com
----
Christopher Hickman
> Wow. Before
this thread I had no idea there were so many different tarot
>
decks. Are this different versions identical in function and only
varied by
> design? Like my deck of GI Joe playing cards vs. a
standard Bicycle deck?