Morgan Press published this deck from 1970 through at least 1976, but most likely until 1981. On eBay you will read that every deck for sale was printed in 1970 or 1971, which is not only a lie, but a fraudulent representation of those decks, as the date YOUR DECK was printed determines its value. Too many later decks are being sold as if they were “first edition,” and too many buyers are being scammed as a result. There really is no excuse (for the sellers in any case) as the information is easy to find and even later copyrights appear on many versions of the decks. So here is the story of the Aquarian Tarot.

In the beginning there were two brothers: Lloyd and Douglas Morgan. Their father was Willard Morgan, a notable editor for Life magazine (seriously: this guy was “the shit”) and their mother, Barbara, was a well-known photographer who specialized in dance. They were great friends with Ansel Adams and other famous creative types, and Lloyd even published Ansel’s early works. These two brothers were well-versed in the printing trade and the art world, and thus perfectly suited to create a new kind of tarot deck; a nouveau one if you will. Their previous work with the artist David Paladini included a series of astrology and tarot posters (also showcased on this site). In 1971 it was time to set David’s art to card form and release on the United States the first “non-W/S image clone” deck ever. This is especially important as this “Aquarian” deck serves as the antecedent, or godfather, of all modern tarot decks that follow the W/S tradition of fully illustrating the entire deck but stray far from the illustrations set down by Pam and Art.  This deck is the progenitor of all non-W/S modern tarot decks. It is like a father of a thousand children.

. . . and it is all because Doug and Lloyd invested in cards, when their specialty was of a more refined nature. The deck was a smash hit and sold for at least a decade before being sold to Kaplan, who still publishes it to this day (along with the Morgan Greer deck). In that sense this deck is second only to the original Rider images (W/S art) in longevity and continuation of printing. The University Books and Frankie Albano creations were merely re-colorings of Pam’s line art after all. But not all Aquarian decks are created equal, which is why we have a page here to discuss them. So let’s get right into this . . .

There is no way to know which color back was printed first, but we do know that none were printed before 1970. The tarot art for the “major” Arcana was done in 1970. We know this because the Morgan brothers published a limited series of tarot posters in 1970, and Lloyd had a bathroom papered with art from the deck, which is some of the coolest wallpaper ever, by the way. All of the decks created in the 1970, ’71, and early ’72 print runs had an ouroboros (snakey in a figure-8) on the back. The vertical location of mister snakey (how far from the center of the card it appeared) changed, but the snake stayed the same. The colors also changed. The hardest to find these days is the version with the white snake on a black background, followed by the black snake on a red background. Then there is the white snake on an orange background, and finally the most common (if that can be said at all) is the red snake on a pink background. Nonetheless, all of these are extremely hard to find and come up on eBay maybe once or twice a year. These were all printed at the Hastings-on-Hudson address before Lloyd got married (to a lovely woman named Liliane de Cock)  in 1972 and moved the print shop to Dobbs Ferry. All other decks were printed in 1973 or later.