In the 18th century, when tarots began to be used more or less everywhere for cartomancy, several new graphic styles were introduced, though subjects did not change from the classic ones. Some of these decks, such as the Tarot de Marseille, are still well-known today.
In recent times, for mere commercial reasons, the attitude of creating new tarot patterns has incredibly enhanced the number of existing decks, which usually maintain the original trump subjects, although some packs even feature new subjects: compared to classic editions, these tarots are no more than novelties.
Fergus Hall Tarot:
This deck has become rather famous: designed by Fergus Hall, these cards appeared in a well-known James Bond movie, 007 Live And Let Die (1973). They are beautifully decorated in a very peculiar style, and each suit has a specific background colour: green for Coins (correctly named, instead of the more common "Pentacles"), blue for Cups, red for Swords and brown for Batons.
A "007" pattern is featured on the backs, to recall the movie.
Egyptian Tarot
This so-called Egyptian Tarot features more traditional illustrations, in a particular and rather ornate graphic style, mostly copied from a French 19th century edition which bore the title of Grande Jeu de l'Oracle des Dames. Many of the trumps in the modern deck, though, have words in Spanish.
On the left side of each trump is a Hebrew letter, since one of the relations traditionally claimed by cartomancy for the 22 major arcana is that these cards correspond to the letters in the aforesaid alphabet, a theory inspired by the Kabbalah, the Jewish mystic esoteric doctrine, in which each letter has a given numerical value, thus the ordering of such letters-numbers is a crucial detail.
The suit cards, instead, feature miniatures of the corresponding subjects from both a Spanish-suited deck (Catalan pattern) and a French-suited deck (international pattern).
The small line of text (in Italian) on the upper and lower rim states the divinatory meaning of each card. On the backs is a colour reproduction of a famous 15th century engraving, "The Card Players", by Israel van Meckenem.
Tarocco Indovino
The tarot shown on the right, drawn by Sergio Ruffolo, is produced by Dal Negro (Italy).
Its name, Tarocco Indovino ("clairvoyant tarot"), suggests that this edition too is a typical fortune-telling pack, not intended for playing; both the trumps and the suit cards feature characters related to the magic meaning they allegedly claim, stated in the upper left corner.
The illustrations are filled with pastel colours, the graphic result is unusual for a tarot, but rather nice all the same.
The tiny indices are in Italian ("R" for king, "D" for queen, "C" for cavalier and "F" for knave), while the suits are the French ones, two peculiar features, since classic tarots use Italian suits, and never have indices.
NON-STANDARD TAROT DECKS
There are many decks which do not follow the standard set of 22 trumps plus four suits. The following one is called Taotl; it is made in Italy, although it is described as "Mexican tarot" (the name of the deck means "God" in Aztec language).
The cards in the pack are 72. The trump cards are only seven: three gods (Red God, Black God and Taotl), and four identical Chipetl cards with a green skull; the remaining 65 cards are divided into five suits: Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, Spades and ...Totems (actually, they are masks!), as stated by one of the booklets given with the deck. Each suit has values from 1 to 10, plus three courts (jack, queen and king).
The illustrations are in a typical style: the red suits feature native Aztec personages, while the black suits feature Spanish conquerors.
Two separate booklets give the rules for the Taotl game (a trick game, somewhat reminiscent of Bridge) and the instructions for a divinatory use.