The Sherlock Holmes Tarot: Wisdom from the First Consulting Detective Cards – August 5, 2014

Alright, so let me be straight: I'm probably not going to use this deck for readings, and that's what I originally purchased it for. Being a Sherlockian and Tarot reader, I thought combining the two would be cool. However, I found that the changing of card names and suits didn't work out for me.But...this deck is wonderful. The artwork is beautiful and the name changes were not entirely out of left field. It does work, but I can't connect to it. What's nice is that I can simply add it as a collectible to my Sherlock stuff. I'm rating it 5 stars because it is truly a great deck and worth the money.I will say that when my cards arrived some of the Major Arcana had damaged borders. This isn't a big deal as I can simply cut them off, but I've read that others had issues with card damage as well. It seems that there's a good chance of that happening.

This is a very cool deck. The pictures are very vivid in color and really bring out an air of mystery about them. It definitely stays true to the Sherlock Holmes theme and incorporates many characters from the book, not just Holmes and Watson.The cards themselves are slightly thick and also not so glossy, so if you like that style then no problem! I find it a little too easy to scratch or scuff up the cards and prefer a glossier card. The guidebook that accompanies the deck is also a great read and very well put together. Very informative on the Sherlock Holmes legend, and tarot! Many of the cards are renamed, so I can see how it might be hard to understand for a beginner (like me!), but the handbook is descriptive enough to really help dispel any worries about learning the cards with their new names. I'd recommend this for any seasoned tarot reader, but also every tarot lover and lovers of mystery.

I absolutely love this deck. As a professional tarot reader I have found the information in the accompanying book very fun and insightful. I love the Sherlock theme having read several of the books and watched the shows, movies, etc. I enjoy having a fresh take at the standard Rider-Waite-Smith structure, thinking about the suites and the Major Arcana in a new way gets me excited to use the deck. The book is beautiful. And as a multitmedia scholar (I have a B.A. in video art) I really love the artistic style. I can’t believe they took the time to stage all 78 scenes for the card images, photograph them, then digitally paint them. This is clearly a deck with a lot of passion put into it by the author, artist and their elaborate team.But then we get to the actual physical cards. Shameful! The paper is so thin on the cards that the edges started to fray straight out of the box. Several of the cards are scratched mysteriously. I am likely going to scan the deck and reprint it myself for my own use then box up the original. Really upset. And I bought the last one listed on Amazon, so I couldn’t exchange it.

WOW! !! A really good idea, well-executed! While the artwork on the cards isn't great, and the card-back is overly plain and simple, the 79 cards are truly theme, with a book to detail which Holmes tales they come from and other relevant details. EVERY card is from Holmes, you don't just get 10 boring pentacles on a Ten of Pentacles, you know? So there's really 79 cards used, not just Major Arcana and face cards. Truly a treasure!

The cards artwork is stunning, colorfull and bright, I loved it. The tarot archetypes are well represented by the Holmes's caracters, except for the Aces, that I think it was poor portraided, not too inspired. But it is a really good buy for the tarot and Holmes stories fans, excellent price.

This is an intriguing deck, although I find that it works much better as an Oracle deck rather than a Tarot deck. Normally, I take into account both the imagery and the tarot card meaning for a reading, allowing my intuition to grab onto which aspect is most relevant for the querent. With this deck, however, I found that several of the card mages didn't provide a cohesive connection to the card meanings listed in the book or to a typical tarot card interpretation either. As an example, the 9 of Deduction in this deck, which supposedly corresponds somewhat to the 9 of Pentacles or Coins, has a picture of a man holding a fencing sword. That's confusing.Consequently, I gravitate toward simply gathering intuitive impressions from the pictures, keeping in mind the most general explanation of the card meanings from the book and dismissing my knowledge of typical Tarot card meanings. This means that I'm basically reading it as an Oracle deck, yet I find that this method gives me the most accurate readings with these cards. The card stock is heavy, which means the cards will last longer but are impossible to rifle shuffle. Of course, I use the overhand method of shuffling, so I have no problem using this deck. Both my book and the cards arrived in excellent condition. The book has a decent-sized font. And the relationships between the Sherlock stories and the card illustrations are fun and interesting for any Sherlock Holmes fan.

I bought this as a gift for a Sherlock Holmes fan, who absolutely loves it.