The Fairytale Tarot by Lisa Hunt was originally published in 2009 by Llewellyn Publishing and has been reprinted by US Games Systems Inc in 2024 after being out of print for many years. This was a highly sought after deck that trying to get a copy of it in English was almost impossible without spending an enormous sum of money for it. I originally got the German version of it and was a little disappointed that it had white borders. I then discovered that Spanish version appeared to be borderless and I decided to purchase it to see if that was true and it was. After owning both copies I noticed that there were noticeable differences between each version so I decided to share their unique differences.
Let's start with the box itself:
As you can see in this photo, the German version has a bigger and sturdier box whereas the Spanish version appears to have similar packaging to that of the original English version published by Llewellyn.
The back of each box describe the deck itself and what you can find in the guidebook. However, the German version showcases images of the cards themselves but doesn't mention whether or not the cards have borders or are borderless.
This image shows the German version's box. It is easily to open and quite sturdy. It actually reminds me of what you can find with the boxes you get from a Blue Angel deck. Unlike the flimsy box in the Spanish version that I can tell mimics that English version published by Llewellyn had.
Moving on to the guidebooks: As you can see the German version of the guidebook is much larger than the Spanish version and thus, has much less pages than the Spanish version. The German cover has a matte finish whereas the Spanish version has a glossy cover and is the expected size of for most Llewellyn guidebooks.
The back of each guidebook are quite different. The Spanish version has a description of what The Fairytale Tarot is about whereas the German version just has the same image found on the card backings.
The German version of the guidebook doesn't have an artistic lettering of the first letter in the first paragraph but the Spanish version does. This appears to be similar to how the original English guidebook had. But the German version has an easy-to-read font making it easy to find information about each of the cards. Larger paper also makes sure that there is less pages and thus, less paper being used.
The card-backings are the same but you can tell that German version has thinner cardstock and a matte finish whereas the Spanish version has slightly stronger cardstock and the cardstock feels a little glossier. The backing on the German version also has different colour than the Spanish edition.
Finally, let's look two random cards side-by-side. As you can see the German version is not only smaller but also has a white border around the cards. I tend to prefer borderless editions over borders. I have used both decks in readings but these days whenever I want to use this particular deck, I tend to go for the borderless Spanish version in readings than I do with the German one. In fact, I used it in my previously weekly reading post.
I will say that I find it interesting when international versions of tarot decks have slight differences from their original language versions. Have you had this happen or know of other decks like this that do it? I know the Czech version of the Shadowscapes Tarot for example has larger cards and with gilding (if I remember correctly)Let me know in the comments below!
