Osvald Wirth Tarot. Handcoloured edition by Ouroboros, Denmark 1995/2012

Earlier this year I wrote about the reprint of the historic 1889 Oswald Wirth deck by Adam McLean (here) now it's the turn to an other publication of this deck, also by a big tarot collector/authority, namely by K. Frank Jensen.

Frank's edition is an hand coloured edition of only 10 decks, a very small edition indeed but then even 10 is a lot when you have to carefully and cleanly paint 10 x 22 = 220 cards (size 88x143 mm).The Wirth tarot came in a faux book style box together with an illustrated 32 pages booklet by K. Frank Jensen.

The line drawings come from an anonymous, probably German, artist copying Wirth’s own drawings, as for the colours in Jensen's edition are based upon one of the only 2 versions of this deck know still to be in existence, the one used here belongs in a Japanese collection and was formerly part of the R.C.Bell collection of games.

The other deck is in the possession of Belgian collector Guido Gillabel, how it came into his possession is interesting, if I may say so, formerly the deck belonged to an other collector namely Hans Wesseling, after his death his widow asked Guido to sell of his deck, the Wirth got first sold to individuals behind the movie  Sherlock Holmes 2: A Game of Shadows. After the production of the film Guido was able to buy the deck back.  

I am not sure if there are still decks availlable, but for information about it you can always mail him here.

If you are curious to know the story of the link between this deck and the above mentioned movie Mary K. Greer posted it on her blog here

The Original Oswald Wirth Tarot Of 1889 published by Adam Maclean

Adam McLean continues to procure us all with wonderful decks we collectors love to have - and this time it's a reprint of the original 1889 edition of  the very first and still used esoteric deck created by Oswald Wirth. The tarot is published in a limited edition of 100 decks

At the time the deck was published they where colored by hand by unskilled (and badly paid) hands, often children. The used techniques namely by stencils means that the effect was often sloppy with colours overflowing and a messy look.

Adam has cleaned up the deck and is offering it on his website here and proceeds from this deck will go towards the Centre for Tarot Art.

There is also an other version around of the 1889 Wirth deck, handcoloured by K Frank Jensen, you can see it here