It's been a while, but I'm so damn excited to announce that the second edition of Golden Thread Tarot decks are coming soon. There are a lot of changes that are coming with this second edition, which is why I’m creating this post to give you all some updates about it.

You can purchase the deck here!

Our Journey with the Golden Thread Tarot, First Edition

Thank you everyone that purchased the first version of the deck! It's definitely been a huge learning experience, and I've tried my best to do everything in my power to make sure that everyone that has purchased a deck is happy. There were definitely some printing issues that I didn't foresee - the complications of having a fully gold foil deck is so much more than I could have ever guessed. I never really went ahead and did anything like a crowdfunding campaign (it's not in my nature and I would have felt so incredibly uncomfortable), meaning I saved all of my own money to pour into this project. 

This definitely made it a bit harder on the production side, as I had less capital to work with and had to harbor all the personal risk of this project. That really means I had less bargaining power at stake, since printers that were used to working with much larger companies wouldn’t even talk to me. I did (and am still doing) everything in comparatively small runs, because I can't afford more, and because I also am still shipping everything out of my humble apartment in Brooklyn.

Though the decks for the most part have come out quite nicely, I've been frustrated with the quality control with the printer I've was previously using. That means we changed printers for this new edition, and it’s an incredibly scary practice, but one in the end I think will be better for your decks. I found the printer that does the work for several larger, amazing artist-created decks, and I’ve been really impressed with the work that they do.

Changes on the Second Edition of the Golden Thread Tarot

I've been hearing a lot of feedback from you all, and even if you haven't heard back from me, I've taken it all into account. A lot of the changes here are in response to some of the issues that I've heard about, and I’ve laboured to try and change for the past months.

The cards are now being printed on recycled dyed plastic, instead of the original 300gsm card stock. That's right, every card will be printed on plastic from now on. Plastic cards have been used within the playing card industry for a while, but for some reason or another has never made it to the tarot world. This should solve a lot of the issues I heard about for the following reasons...

Plastic cards are sturdier, more durable, and last longer

Quite a few of you have written me  about the quality of the card stock. The changes in material should change this. Plastic cards are known to be much higher quality than paper card stock, and are usually considered the "premium" option when producing playing cards.

The deck now has a black edge instead of white

Because the material itself is black, you won't see those white sides of the deck anymore! This was one of my personal joys with the new deck. When I had this first deck produced, I had to make a choice between having the images be gold foil or the sides (again, limited choices of producers because of small starting capital). I've been craving having the cards be printed on black material, but black card stock wasn't standard for tarot cards, meaning they wrinkled easily. The ones that were available made shuffling incredibly hard, or folded in ways that caused ugly creases.

I’ve seen and noted that some of you have gone ahead and even used a sharpie to blacken the edges yourself. It was something I saw, but again found it a little heartbreaking since it felt like I had failed to cover that desire of yours. Another reason why this was a huge win for me and this deck!

Waterproof

More of a bonus than anything - but because the cards are 100% plastic, they're impervious to water.

Slightly matte instead of very glossy

The slightly matte look of the plastic allows the gold foil images to be even more striking. This was something I hadn't considered earlier, but had gotten feedback for from you guys! Some of you expected the cards to be matte for some reason, and I think with this new printing I understand why.

Updates on the Pricing of New Edition of the Golden Thread Tarot

This new material is very much, like the other things I've done here, experiments - all in the name of trying to get you all the best deck I possibly can. This means I've had to take a hit in terms of cost - each of these new plastic decks at the current scale I'm printing them, will cost about double to make than the paper decks. It hurts. I ran some numbers, and I'm trying my best to keep prices as low as they can. The new printing is going to be sold for $45. The only one deck I've seen that has the option for plastic cards is the bastard deck - where the plastic version is $30 extra. I can see why - she prints all of her cards customized per customer, and now knowing how much more plastic cards cost, it's not unreasonable.

I hope you all understand and can help me push forward in this endeavor! I'm excited to be getting these out and hearing the feedback you'll all have. Please always feel free to write me - you can poke us using the contact form we have on the site.

You can purchase the deck here.