Date,
Publisher
BOX
Description
Card Details
Front
Back
1944,
Chiswick Press
These were printed with the original metal plates used for the color images in the first edition of "The Book Of Thoth", print date March 21, 1944 (200 copies).
ca. 1963
Simpson
250 copies, monotone (blue), with red back.
There is a sense of magic about these cards.
The image of the back doesn't show the actual detail, I find them very attractive, magical.
The story is that Grady McMurtry paid Crowley $250 for the rights to the deck, and photographed the art with his 35mm camera. Some of it was
poorly lit, and you probably see that in your deck. We had a contract with McMurtry and printed the decks first in Hong Kong and then later in the United States.
I forget what year when Weiser got involved. It those days, copyright was not secure like it is today, and anything first published outside the U.S. was not protected by U.S. copyright even after being registered here. There were two complications - the first being the original publication of the Book of Thoth with all the cards illustrated. That book was printed in the UK and then reprinted by Weiser under the clause putting it in public domain. And their claim was that the deck was likewise in the public domain and either they would share printings with Llewellyn or they would do it on their own.
For several printings in the U.S. with Morgan we did share. And then an OTO guy arranged to photograph the paintings again after they were touched up (they had mold on them from improper storage during the War) and they contracted with Mueller to print them in Europe with U.S. Games distributing them in the U.S.
That was the end. We printed over 50,000 decks. I eventually sold our negatives as collectors items to the OTO.
I would say that the copyright issues really never were settled, but who wants to fight the OTO people? And ethically, I think they have the most legitimate claim anyway. Frieda Harris never got anything out of it.
I think our edition was the best packaged of any, and that's to the credit of our printer, Dai Nippon, which at the time was the world's largest printer with plants in Japan and Hong Kong. Today, they are defunct.
.....
We purchased 35 mm negatives of artwork from a Mr. McMurtry who had an agreement with Crowley to publish the Thoth Deck. We did some improvement work on these films.
We first published the deck in 1969 and printed it in Hong Kong in a deluxe slip box. Later we transferred the printing work to Morgan Press in New York and did some further improvement on the negatives. We have not printed the deck since 1977 when a new edition from new photography was published by U.S. Games. Later, after the assertion of copyright claims by the O.T.O., further printings were handled by Mueller (now part of Carta Mundi) in Europe.
Carl Llewellyn Weschcke
LLewellyn
Hong Kong
8 of Cups card is missing the "8"
Published by Llewellyn Publications, St. Paul, Minn. 55165, U.S.A.
Printed in Hong Kong
Published by LLewellyn Publications, St. Paul, Minn. 55165 U.S.A.
Printed in U.S.A.
1969
Samuel Weiser
USA
8 of Cups has the "8"
Published by Samuel Weiser 734 Broadway, N.Y. 10003
Printed in U.S.A.
(left) Hong Kong 1969,
(right) USA 1969
1978
U.S. Games
1978 (no ISBN)
1983 (small ISBN)
1983 (larger ISBN)
1969 USA
1969 Hong Kong
Cards printed in Belgium * Booklet and Box Printed in U.S.A.
Cards printed in Belgium * Booklet and Box Printed in U.S.A.
ISBN 0-913866-15-6 (<<-- in small print)
Cards printed in Belgium * Booklet and Box Printed in U.S.A.
ISBN 0-913866-15-6 (<<-- in larger print than previous)
1983
U.S. Games
1983
U.S. Games
0-913866-15-6
'78 Weiser
0-877284-52-0