Everybody talks about the Visconti Sforza deck art like it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, right? All this fuss about the “Golden Tarot” and the supposed history. I swear, half the people who own it just want to show off the price tag, not actually look at the cards. Do they truly love the art, or do they just love that it’s old and expensive? That’s what I wanted to figure out when I decided to actually get one and film the damn unboxing.
The Mess of Finding the “Right” Deck
My journey to this unboxing started six months ago, and it was a royal mess. See, the “original” Visconti Sforza decks are scattered pieces of history, not one single deck. So, everyone making a reproduction is taking liberties. I didn’t want some cheap knock-off where the colors looked like they were printed on a damp napkin. I wanted the full shine, the gold leaf feel, the closest thing to the real deal you can get without being a museum curator.
I dove into the deep end of the collector forums. Man, those places are brutal. It’s not about the art; it’s about editions, printing dates, paper stock weight, and who restored which piece of a missing card. I was swimming in details I didn’t care about, just trying to find the best compromise.
What I struggled with the most:
- The US Games edition versus the Lo Scarabeo. One is a cheaper classic; the other is a premium nightmare to track down.
- Whether to get the one with “actual” foil stamping or the cheaper versions that just use shiny ink. You pay triple for real foil, and I had to decide if my sanity or my wallet was going to win.
- Shipping. I ordered the one I finally settled on from some small Italian shop because a forum guy swore it was the most accurate restoration. It took three months to cross the Atlantic. Three months! I almost forgot I’d ordered it.
When the massive box finally showed up, I was practically shaking. I ripped it open, threw the outer packaging aside, and started setting up the camera gear. That’s when things really went sideways.
The Technical Nightmare & Why I’m Even Blogging This Week
I set up three lights, my good DSLR, and spent an hour trying to get the white balance right so the gold wouldn’t just look like yellow mush. I pressed record, opened the deck box, and started talking about the history and the deck itself—the size, the thickness, the art. I spent twenty minutes carefully shuffling through the Major Arcana, pointing out the restoration details.
I finished the take, feeling pretty good. Then I looked at the camera screen. The memory card was full. It had stopped recording two minutes into the unboxing. Two minutes! I had just wasted an hour of perfect lighting and first impressions. I cursed. I unplugged everything and walked away. This deck was stressing me out more than it was bringing me joy.
Now, why am I sharing this mundane technical failure today, and why am I suddenly talking about Tarot decks when last week I was sharing my notes on cloud architecture? That’s the real story, and it has nothing to do with Renaissance art.
I know all this deck nonsense because I’ve had nothing else to do for a solid five weeks. My old consultancy gig? The one I’ve been running for three years? It went south, suddenly and dramatically.
I spent eight months on a huge project for a big tech client. Head down, working weekends, delivering ahead of schedule. We were supposed to roll into Phase Two at the start of last month, signing a big new contract. Everything was already agreed upon; it was just a formality. I showed up for the contract meeting, and the guy I’d been reporting to, the VP of Engineering, suddenly had a stone face.
He told me, straight up, that the CEO had decided to shift the entire project in-house. They were taking my eight months of work, dumping it on their new internal team, and walking away. Worse? They were trying to claw back the payment for the last milestone. They claimed some obscure clause in the original contract meant the “deliverables weren’t final” because they decided to change the definition of “final” five minutes before the meeting.
I argued. I showed emails. I pointed out their acceptance sign-offs. It didn’t matter. It was a power play. They stalled, they denied payment, and they ghosted my calls. It was a complete gut punch. Suddenly, eight months of work and expected revenue vanished. My bank account took a nosedive faster than I could pivot to a new client.
I decided that was it. I closed the books on that client, even if it meant fighting a legal battle later (which I will, believe me). I needed to clear my head and get away from that world for a bit before jumping into new contracts. My wife told me to just relax for a month—we had a safety cushion, thankfully, even if it was bleeding dry fast. So, what did I do? I picked up the most tedious, mentally distracting hobby I could think of: finally unboxing that overpriced, history-laden deck that had been sitting on my shelf for weeks.
I’m sharing my life and my unboxing journey not because I’m a professional Tarot expert, but because suddenly, I have the forced time to be a full-time, slightly disgruntled blogger. That Unity job my old company posted after I walked out, which was stuck at a low salary for two years? I’m seeing similar desperate moves from that tech client who stiffed me. It’s not a coincidence. When a company pulls cheap tricks, it usually means their internal structure is a complete mess.
Anyway, after the camera fail, I reorganized everything. I recorded the entire thing again, better this time. The video is finally up. You can see how the gold looks under good light and decide for yourself if you love the art, or just the idea of owning something rare.
