Tarot Productions, Inc. has the distinct historical note of creating the “world’s largest LWB” (Little White Booklet), which by all faculties of common sense should be entitled the “Large White Booklet” (but still LWB, or maybe XLWB). The inside of this booklet bears the words “new material copyright 1968, which happens to be the same verbiage used in the 1959/60 University Books, Inc. version of the Pictorial Key to the Tarot. This is worth mentioning as Frankie’s deck creations were a response to UB’s wildly successful decks and books beginning in the 1960’s.
This extra large white booklet is in fact a truncated version of Waite’s Pictorial Key to the Tarot without images for the pip suits. I don’t recognize the art, but it is eerily similar in style to that on the Albano Tarot Wheel, so my best guess is that like those on the TW, this image is a loose tracing of some iconic image of a goddess or metaphysically related image. It is obviously Ceres, who is represented in the Waite-Smith deck as The Empress. Please contact us if you know from whence this specific image hails. I have only found two copies of this booklet, but others are bound to appear in libraries or old bookshops and stacks of metaphysical papers. Images are below. Should you need larger images for your research or educational purposes please contact us.
Also note how Frank moved The Fool back to its position between Judgement and The World but did not renumber that card.
Other Frankie Albano creations
Frank R. Albano (a.k.a. Tarot Productions, Inc. of Hollywood circa 1968) created a few things we know of with certainty, and some things we are still researching. Facts first, then fun stuff (links lead to item-specific pages):
- 1967 Tarot Wheel
- 1968-ish Trumps only 22-card deck
- 1968-ish Trumps only 22-card GIANT deck
- 1968-ish Tarot Productions miniature deck
- 1968 Tarot Productions PKTT/*LWB