The Cost of Counterfeit Tarot Decks: Why Artists Pay the Price

Tarot and oracle decks are more than just tools for divination—they’re works of art, filled with symbolism, intuition, and the energy of their creators. When you invest in an authentic deck, you’re not just getting a set of cards. You’re supporting an artist, a creator who poured their heart and soul into crafting something meaningful. You’re telling them, Your work matters to me. I see its value. I welcome it into my life.

Unfortunately, this dedication and hard work have given rise to something far less magical: the sneaky, shady world of counterfeit tarot and oracle decks.

You’ve probably seen those suspiciously cheap decks floating around online. They’re everywhere. Maybe you’ve even thought, Wow, what a deal!—especially when an out-of-print deck seems impossible to find or an original costs a small fortune. It’s tempting, right? After all, who’s going to know besides you? What’s the harm in buying a bootleg?

Well, my friends, there’s plenty of harm. Let’s break it down.

First Off, They’re Trash

Counterfeit decks are, simply put, trash. They’re printed on flimsy, low-quality cardstock that bends, scratches, and falls apart after a relatively few shuffles. Authentic decks are often coated for durability, designed to last for years, but bootlegs skip this entirely. If you’re someone who reads often—especially professionally—this difference isn’t just noticeable; it’s a deal breaker.

It’s not just the quality of the material that suffers; the printing itself is often a mess. Colors can be dull and washed out or weirdly oversaturated. Details may be blurry or cropped wrong, symbols can be missing, and the entire aesthetic of the deck may be just off. Features like gilded edges, embossing, or foil accents that make a deck feel special? Counterfeits don’t even try to replicate them. What you’re left with is a poor imitation of something beautiful, a cheap knockoff that doesn’t capture the magic of the original.

Is This Deck Missing Something?

Another major issue with bootleg decks is that they’re often incomplete. Most modern tarot and oracle decks come with a guidebook, giving insight into the inspiration, symbolism, and messages behind the cards. This isn’t just fluff—it’s a vital part of the experience. Without it, you miss out on the depth and meaning that the creator intended. Many counterfeit decks either don’t include a guidebook at all or toss in a generic one that has nothing to do with the deck.

Worse still, some counterfeits cut corners in more dramatic ways. Some don’t even have the full set of cards. Imagine opening your new deck only to find that 28 cards are missing (a true story a bunch of people who ordered a $7 deck from a website that rhymes with “wee-woo”). At that point, you don’t just have a bad deck—you have an unusable one.

The Value of Garbage is Less-Than-Garbage

Then there’s the issue of value. Maybe you’re thinking, “I don’t plan to resell my decks, so why does it matter?”

Value is a word that doesn’t just mean it’s resale price. Value gauges overall usefulness in terms of money, time, and resources spent. Yes, a fake deck lacks monetary value—but it also lacks usability, longevity, and meaning. If you buy a counterfeit and realize it’s not what you hoped for, what do you do with it? You can’t donate or resell it without perpetuating the problem, and throwing it away adds to landfills and validates the disposal-culture promoted by fake creators. And even if you keep it, there it sits, staring at you, an imposter among your treasured collection, rubbing in your face that it’s the fake version of an artist’s true vision.

What secrets did the creator hide in there? You’ll never know… You got the dupe.

Fake Art Hurts Real Artists

Creating a tarot deck is a deeply personal, time-intensive journey. Artists spend months—sometimes years—crafting each image, refining symbolism, and ensuring their deck tells a meaningful story in a way that honors their vision. When their work is stolen and mass-produced without credit or payment, it’s not just a financial loss—it’s demoralizing. Many creators, disheartened by seeing their efforts exploited, stop designing new decks, leaving the tarot world with fewer fresh, innovative creations.

They can ruin an artist’s reputation. Customers who unknowingly buy a bootleg may associate the poor cardstock, faded colors, and sloppy printing with the original creator. That poor word-of-mouth spreads making people less inclined to buy the deck based off of the negative reviews they’re hearing. What they don’t realize the original deck, the one that reflects the creator’s vision, was perfect, and only the counterfeit was flawed.

Now the creator’s name is forever tangled with a version of the product they never created to begin with.

Publisher Purgatory

Counterfeits also create significant problems in the publishing world. Emerging artists hoping to find a publisher to help with the high costs of creating a deck are hit hard, but established creators are often the most affected. When a deck becomes popular, it’s bound to be bootlegged. As more people buy counterfeit copies, sales of the legitimate version drop, and publishers often lower the price to stay competitive. This means creators lose out on income from both the bootleg sales and again reduced prices on the official deck.

This cycle can lead to what’s known as publishing purgatory—a kind of creative limbo where a creator is not profitable enough to publish again but too profitable to release from their contract. Legal battles over copyright infringement are costly and time-consuming, and publishers may see the creator as too risky to invest in again, but they also don’t want to lose them to competing publishers. The artist is then stuck with the choice of buying out their contract (which can be expensive) or breaking it and risking a lawsuit, leaving the creator stuck.

This very thing has happened to three authors I know in the last seven years. These authors created groundbreaking decks that were incredibly popular, yet 2 out of every 3 decks sold were counterfeit. The counterfeits were so prolific that even major retailers couldn’t tell the difference, often accidentally stocking the fake versions over the real ones. The creators shared the frustration of canceled follow-up projects, shelved plans, and non-compete clauses that prevent them from working with other publishers or even self-publishing. One was able to fund a buyout of their contract through a GoFundMe campaign and successfully self-publish follow-ups. The other two are quietly waiting for their non-compete clauses to expire, hoping to finally move forward with their next big ideas, but not before the Tarot community as a whole forgets about them.

How to Avoid Counterfeit Decks

Have I scared you into making sure you’re buying only the real decks from the real authors? Good! Now, here’s how you can grow your collection without contributing to bootleg culture:

• Buy from Reputable Sources – Whenever possible, purchase directly from the creator of the publisher.
• Be Wary of Suspiciously Low Prices – If a deck is being sold at a fraction of its normal price, see that as the red flag you know it is. After all, a deck that’s $40 from the publisher but marked down $5 on that website is clearly a dupe.
• Look for Official Listings – Many artists and publishers provide lists of authorized sellers on their websites.
• Buying used? – Do you research and ask questions. Know what the deck should look like, comparison shop with other sellers, and make sure key details match. If the deck was sold in a rigid clamshell but this version is in a tuck box, chances are, it’s a fake. If every other person is selling it for $100 because it’s out of print, but this person is selling it for $25 and claiming it’s like new, be super suspicious.

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Support the Artists Who Bring Magic to Your Life

Every tarot or oracle deck is a labor of love. By choosing to buy authentic decks, you ensure that creators can continue making beautiful, meaningful tools for divination and self-discovery. When you invest in a real deck, you’re not just buying cards—you’re supporting the creative energy that makes tarot a powerful experience and telling a creator that their vision found a place in your practice.

So the next time you see a tempting, cheap tarot deck online, remember: A few dollars saved isn’t worth the cost of harming an artist’s livelihood and the integrity of the tarot community. Let’s protect the magic by supporting real creators.