A Beautiful Rebellion Tarot Deck Review And Advice on How To Avoid Counterfeit Decks
I was browsing Amazon looking for a Tarot deck to give as a gift and found this Beautiful Rebellion deck.
Unfortunately, it was a counterfeit Tarot deck.
I’ve heard about bootleg Tarot decks. I knew it was a problem. I just didn’t know I would accidentally buy one.
There I was, browsing away on Amazon, and the Beautiful Rebellion deck caught my eye. The deck is created from John William Waterhouse paintings, and several other artists from the mid 1800’s to the early 1900’s.
I love, love , love Waterhouse so I bought the deck as a gift and bought one for myself.
The deck arrived the next day.
When I opened the package, the deck was in a light, cardboard tuck box. I noticed that there was no information about the deck author or the company who produced the deck.
And it had a QR code to scan for the guidebook.
Red flag number 1.
Features of a counterfeit Tarot deck
Cardstock — The card stock of the deck was rather thin. Now I don’t mind a thinner cardstock. Thinner cardstock makes for easier shuffling and the deck isn’t so large and hard to handle with thinner stock.
The stock was not glossy, which I thought was a little strange. This is not completely unbelievable, but for an artistic deck of this sort, I would expect glossy cardstock.
Image quality — The image quality jumped out as not as expected. The images of the deck I purchased are rather dark and muted. Overall not good quality. Lacking sharpness. This was red flag number 2.
Guidebook-– As I mentioned, the guidebook was not included. I scanned the QR code and was taken to a google drive file with 202 🤯 other guidebooks!! This was red flag number 3, and it was then that I confirmed my suspicions that I had bought a counterfeit deck.
Needless to say, I was very disappointed.
And I was also surprised that I was so easily duped by the Amazon listing. And yes, I did leave a review stating that it is a counterfeit Tarot deck.
How to Avoid Counterfeit Tarot Decks
Since I wasn’t familiar with the Beautiful Rebellion Tarot before I purchased it, I did some quick research.
I’m sure some of you are rolling your eyes, saying DUH, but bear with me.
A quick Google search revealed that the deck author is Robin L. Cole, and on her website there is a link to the deck on Make Playing Cards.com. Ugh. I really messed up.
I also found an article by the creator of the Tarot of Trees about how her deck has been counterfeited and some advice on avoiding counterfeit decks.
Here are some tips on how I will be avoiding counterfeit or bootleg Tarot decks in the future:
- If on Amazon, only buy decks from known publishers like U.S. Games, Lo Scarebo, etc. If the company name isn’t listed, don’t buy it.
- Search for decks on Make Playing Cards, Kickstarter or other similar platforms. I’m not sure if Etsy has been infected with counterfeit decks or not. Probably not, but I will be cautious.
- Search Google for the deck and/or creator before making a purchase. It’s a quick step that can reveal if the deck creator sells the deck from their website, or link out to where they do sell the deck.
- I haven’t bought a deck from the Tarotarts website yet, but they seem legit.
The silver lining I suppose is that I got a preview copy of The Beautiful Rebellion Tarot. I do indeed like the deck and will be buying a legit copy in the future.
If you are looking for a free tarot deck to download, I created one. Have at it.
Am I worried about anyone making copies and selling my deck? Not really. I’m not a known deck author, so I think a counterfeit version of my deck might be a bit of a tough sell. But if it does happen, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
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