Never gonna give, never gonna give, give you up

[BreathingSince72]

I suspect that many of us have decks come an go in our lives. We pick one up, hang with it for a while (or not at all), and let it go. I suspect we’ve all had a closet clearing or two. In your experience which of your decks never made it to the chopping block? Which deck did it never even cross your mind to sell or trade? Why?

[I Sunshine]

There are a small number of decks that have touched my soul to the point that, you are correct, I would never, ever, never think of getting rid of them. My first deck Daughters of the Moon is one. It has been through "hell and high water" with me. It never lets me down, always tells the truth & always gives me much to work with. Shapeshifter by Lisa Hunt has given me such accurate and deep readings, it will always stay with me. And the Osho Zen Tarot... that one answered a question about a relationship my daughter was in to the "T".
So I guess, for me, it is a matter of depth of reading, familiarity and trust that will make a deck a forever keeper. If I had, on pain of death, to get rid of all my decks but three, these are the three I would keep. And I have some awesome decks, ones I would just cry to see them go, but I don't think I would change my mind.

[Charlie Brown]

I have a real hard time selling or trading my things in general, so I pretty much still have any deck I've ever gotten. I'm not a big deck collector type though, so that's still well under 20.

Even though I don't use it very much, I guess I'd be very hard pressed to ever part ways with the Pomo Tarot. It's got some extremely unique qualities and was also the first non-standard/RWS-style deck I ever purchased. Plus, it's good for sex readings.

[stronglove]

great question! and really hard to answer when you have so many decks to choose from....
but a quick scan left me with five absolutely essential decks:
the vertigo tarot (my soul deck)
tarot of the spirit (one of my oldest decks)
dream dust shamanic tarot (favorite abstract deck)
the tinker’s damn tarot (if possible with the mantegna)
the lismon etteilla (one of the four i own, etteilla is my favorite historical deck)

there is one oracle deck i would take with me anywhere i go and that is melissae luciae’s oracle of initiation. (with the companion book)
if i could only take one deck this would be IT

[Tarot_scholar]

I went from a compulsive deck buyer to giving away half of my (tiny) collection and not really replacing it. I'm still young (though not as young as I used to be ) and so it feels silly to talk about the decks I've never given away, as if I've been collecting Tarot decks for an impressive amount of time...

I think there are two that will probably stay with me no matter what. It has little to do with our working relationship and everything to do with history. The first is my Thoth deck. As I mentioned in the Thoth forum, I bought it at the urging of a friend who is still today, over a decade later, one of my nearest and dearest. The two of them, deck and person, are very much intertwined for me. The other is the Russian Tarot of St Petersburg, which I bought in New Orleans in 2008, visiting friends for a relaxing and charming week. I actually had to buy another one a few years later, as maybe a third of the cards suffered a bit of water damage -- I still consider it the "same" deck, even with the new cards. So in a sense both decks are "souvenirs" of a sort. (Though I also love them as decks, on their own merits.)

[Amoroso]

Except for a couple of decks or so, I ain't giving up my decks.

[BlueStar]

I don't have a large collection and am still learning to work with some of them. I don't think I'd give any of them up just yet. I love working with my Zen Osho and Fountain cards. I have a couple of others too I love (Dreams of Gaia, Legacy of the Divine).

Two other decks have proved a bit challenging though...I have one deck that I really liked the imagery when I saw it online and thought it would be useful to learn the RWS, but I just haven't been able to work with it at all, I'm now finding the imagery a bit shallow and can't connect with it. I've considered selling it. The other one has very basic imagery for the pip cards (not much there expect for the suit symbols), and I need more content in it for readings, so I've shelved that one too. But I'll hang on to them for now - I may find them useful in the future. I was drawn to them so I figure they may serve a purpose at a later date...

[CharlotteK]

Well, most of the decks I was absolutely convinced I would never ever let go of a year ago, I have actually now sold or traded.

What remains are many decks that aren't very saleable because they are too common/ cheap / unfashionable / undesirable or ones that I have modified in some way. And quite a lot of decks I just haven't had chance to work with and fully make my mind up about.

The three I still can't contemplate selling or letting go of are:
Anna K self published
Tyldwick
1971 Blushing Fool RWS

And if I did sell these I know I would probably end up rebuying them:
Wildwood
Druidcraft
Game of Thrones
Ethereal Visions
Thoth
Wild Unknown
Tinker's Damn

Having taken the plunge on so many others I think now I could let go of quite a lot of my collection without major regrets, if I had to.

[Nemia]

I can't face giving up the tarot decks I have right now They're all precious to me. If I buy a deck that I dislike, I immediately get rid of it. And sometimes, I regret it later.

But if the house was burning and all the cats were safe, which decks would I save? Thoth - Tabula Mundi - Rosetta - Silhouettes - Botticelli - Four Heavenly Kings - Haindl - Fountain - Pagan Otherworlds ... oh dear, let's hope the house won't burn down because I'd drag them all out

[AstralPasta]

Right now, definitely my Shadowscapes and Numinous.

I think the Sakki-sakki would probably make it up there too, just got it a month ago but it was one of those constant double take ones for me.

I can't imagine giving Britt's Third Eye away either.

There others I have are mainly for studying, and I'm looking to trade one.

But as of September all my cigarette money is going to decks as reward ($80 a month). And I've obsessively researched and refined and refined my list, so I imagine a lot of them will make it pretty high on the list. Not used to that, to be honest. Used to just the one heart deck, Shadowscapes. Now I've got a definite two, and close one, and I'm barely halfway my confirmed tarot wishlist. It's weird!

[Joan Marie]

But as of September all my cigarette money is going to decks as reward ($80 a month).

Congratulations, and what great idea.

[Anesidora]

These are the decks I could never give up to save my life:

Deviant Moon
Ceccoli
Pagan Otherworlds
Marigold
Tattoo Tarot (both the Eight Coins and Ink & Intuition decks)
Rosetta
Thoth

I'd be sad to see the other decks go, but these are ones I absolutely could not let go of