Gilded Reverie Lenormand Expanded Edition

I won't let the one oversight I found (through the sharp eye of my husband) color my review of yet another amazing deck from artist Ciro Marchetti, so let's just get that out of the way now. Be aware, there is one error in the printing. The Dog card #18 has been partnered with the 10 of Spades (printed in the lower right-hand portion of the card). This is incorrect and should be the 10 of Hearts. There is no 10 of Hearts in this deck (at least the one I just purchased), but there is another 10 of Spades....the correct card #3, The Ship. So, essentially there are two cards associated with the 10 of Spades, and that is incorrect. I have heard that there may be an expansion set of cards published for this deck, if so, perhaps U.S. Games can include a revised printing of Card #18, the Dog card to correct this error. That out of the way, let me just echo what other reviewers have already said and perhaps encourage you further to check out this deck. If you have any of Marchetti's other decks (Legacy of the Divine Tarot, Gilded Tarot, etc) you will appreciate his artistic vision here in the Lenormand. He transforms this simple fortune-telling deck into one that will allow you to delve even deeper into what the cards are trying to impart to you. The artwork is absolutely stunning. I found I couldn't stop going through and looking at this deck. Marchetti and his co-authors encourage you to create stories with the cards you lay out. The artwork, the mood, and atmosphere present on the individual cards certainly makes it easy for you to do so. The packaging is supurb, a nice sturdy, beautiful box to store your cards and booklet in. Other Tarot publishers should take note of this. The deck is based on the 36-cards of the original Lenormand. The authors based their interpretations on a German predecessor of the game, The Game of Hope. Though the accompanying booklet is small, the interpretations are substantial enough to guide the reader into creating their own stories and conclusions from the card layouts. We are given three nicely crafted layouts to use with this deck. I particularly liked "The Fortune-telling Day Spread". You layout two rows of nine cards. Each pair of cards are read together and provide information on 9 aspects of your life that you may experience that day. If you do this early and write down the results, at the end of the day you can assess the results of your reading to see how accurate it was in reflecting your experiences that day. Nice! Though my primary medium these days is the Tarot, I grew up on Lenormand (and other) styles of divination being practiced by the five sisters in my Mother's family. I have a deep love and respect for this style of fortune-telling. So, if you enjoy down and dirty gypsy fortune-telling style decks (and I have quite a few), this one is one of the best interpretations I've seen to date and it takes this type of fortune-telling to new levels.

I got these and the kipper deck today. I have the romantic lenormand deck, which i absolutely love... but these have the pip nos on the card and extra cards with extended meanings. I felt like that adds more layer and deeper meaning. So i snatched them up. They are simply gorgeous... beautiful images with an elevated gilded edge. Bout the size of reg playing cards. Even the box is lovely, with a magnetized flap. I love that the size matches the kipper deck.... they pair together beautifully! Its almost like they were made to go together.

When I first hear of Lenormand, I was on the fence about it. I'm a tarot girl, and I have a few oracle cards that I use on a regular basis as well . . . but Lenormand? What was it's purpose? Was it meant to be a replacement for tarot? After several of my tarot friends began to tell me how much they loved the Lenormand deck, I decided to give it a try. To quote Harlan Ellison, “You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.” I figured it was time to outgrow my ignorance of the deck so many people loved. I initially started off with a different Lenormand deck and the pictures were a bit confusing. They were poorly drawn and there was to much going on in each picture for me to get a sense of what the cards were trying to say. The energy, the drawings and the meaning of each card seemed to clash with each other. It just wasn't a good deck. Instead of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, I decided to try one more deck. I saw a video review of this one and was immediately impressed with the beautiful artwork. I hesitantly made my purchase and I'm glad I did. When my cards arrived, I was very excited. I went through each card one by one and I could feel the energy of each card. This deck spoke to me immediately and it complimented the book I was going through to learn the Lenormand. (That book is "The Essential Lenormand: Your Guide To Precise and Practical Fortunetelling" by Rana George.) If you're new to Lenormand, you will love this deck. You will bond with it immediately and you will appreciate the beautiful golden edges along with the stunning artwork. (On a sidenote, I also enjoyed finding the designers initials in each card. It feels like a little game. Every good artist signs his or her artwork, and this artist made his signature a fun little quest on each card.) I may not be a Lenormand expert, but I'm pretty sure this is the only deck I will ever need. I just can't express how much I love this deck. You really need to hold it in your hands to feel it's energy to understand why it's so lovely.

This is my first Lenormand deck and I'm blown away. This helped me to decipher a lot more info then just using tarot and oracle. I found out something really important with this deck and I'm seriously blown away. The imagery is gorgeous and easy to read without needing the guidebook so perfect for beginners. I was concerned about how I would like cards without words but you don't need it. Super easy. Love this deck! I immediately purchased another deck by the same author but this is still my favorite. Highly recommend!

This is a class act. The gold-gilded deck comes in a sturdy box with magnetic lid; prepared to stand up to heavy use. Ciro Marchetti's artwork is soft, colorful, and reflective. The card stock on these gold gilded gloss cards is sturdy and springs nicely when bent .I went through the instruction book thoroughly. The cards are interpreted by two people; Rana George and Tali Goodwin. The first explanation is poetic, whimsical, and from the card's point of view. The second explanation is more traditional but to the point and not repetitive. Often the original interpretation from the Game of Hope deck is brought in to keep things realistic and simple. Occasionally Ciro Marchetti trumps both authors by providing a description that connects with his symbolism. While this is a Lenormand deck, the author takes some liberties with the manner in which he presents the image. For example, the Rider (1) card is represented by a young woman carrying a messenger bag seated on a carousel horse; a metaphor for life's ups and downs, moving quickly, ane bearer of information at an increased pace of communications in our society. This replaces the traditional man on a horse. I don't mind Ciro's efforts to make this deck more relevant for the 21st century. I did purchase the optional companion file which is basically a book going into more background on each card, more history; presenting helpful tables for a brief synopsis on each card and well explained additional spreads. This was well worth the $3.00 charged. In my opinion this man has made a great and sincere effort to present the purchaser with an understanding and treatment of Lenormand from every angle he could imagine. He tries to make it non-threatening, visually appealing, and fun. The idea of neighboring cards affecting the meaning of each card was introduced by examples with every card's description. He brought in other experts to "test drive" and assist him in the Gilded Reverie's development as he was making it. These experienced Lenormand readers included the well known Caitlin Mathews and Morwenna from Germany. I could go on and on. This point here is that I find it difficult to not be totally impressed by the beauty of Ciro Marchetti's presentation and the thoroughness with which he enmeshed himself in this project. Ciro Marchetti "gave his all" in creating this deck. I guess I would have to say that in the realm of Lenormand decks, this is a work of art.

This is a used Lenormand deck. The expanded edition. Gilded edges. Bright colors images in Ciro Marchetti style. Cards are easy glide. Two each man and woman cards for more flexibility when reading for same gender couples. Some nudity(woman) that might not be suitable for younger readers. Extra cards give more variety of things for your readings. The images give the basics one but the. One can read more into the total art piece of each card. Good for beginners or experienced readers. The little book is well done not colored images. Not a problem. A must for anyone who collects Marchetti decks as well as Lenormand.

Outstanding! Richly colored and illustrated version of the Lenormand deck. The essential symbols are, for the most part, easily identified so that the extra artistic embellishments don't detract from the reader's ability to recognize the literal card meaning. There are a few extra cards: two versions of the Bird/Owl card (one which specifically features owls); and extra man/woman cards for use with same sex relationships. Additionally included are some interesting symbols which the Lenormand purist may choose to opt out of using, but provide interesting food for thought: Compass, Clock, Bridges, Dice, Mask, Well, Maze and Magnifying Glass. There is also a small but adequate booklet (very fine print!) tucked into this nice quality, open-leaf book storage style box. The size of the cards and box are similar to regular playing cards; i.e., these aren't the traditionally smaller sized Lenormand cards. Right now I'm using my smaller Lenormand cards, but these are likely to become my go-to Lenormand favorites. Great shipping & packaging; arrived as expected. Thanks!

I originally bought this for myself thinking that I would like it because of the beautiful artwork but I didn't feel much of a connection with the deck itself. On the plus side my significant other ended up loving these cards! The artwork is great but felt like when it came to giving readings the artwork "cluttered" up things making it a bit harder to interpret them. I had so much fun looking for the artists signature on each card after my significant other pointed it out to me. Artwork: There were some cards where I didn't like the artwork on like the Tree (it has the kabbalah Tree), The polar bear(I feel the grizzly energy represents the meaning better), The Rider (Didn't like how they changed the gender to a female but I understand what the artist was going for), the male, woman and child cards (I wish all of them were either profile of the shoulders and up or where you could see the whole body, not a mixture), The lilies coloring (I go with more of the pure old age meaning mostly but the pinkish purple coloring on the "lips" of the lilies made me think of a vagina, so great for people who go with more of the sexual meaning of this card but not for me), And the tower (I felt like it took away from the isolation aspect because it looks more like a castle than one tower). I didn't like the flowers card either or the birds (I didn't like the four birds instead of two because I felt like it didn't emphasize the couple meaning much). I know with Lenormand, the images isn't all that important because you read the symbols on the card but the way this artwork is done it makes me think of some meanings first. I absolutely adored the stork card because the artwork represented the meaning amazingly well. The anchor, ring and the moon were great too. Cardstock: Nice durable yet flexible medium thickness paper. It also has a glossy finish. I would have preferred a matte finish because the way the light can hit the cards makes it harder to see, thus distracting. Now as a collectors item the glossy finish makes the colors look richer. The gold edges are beautiful but I wonder how long it will to take for it to wear off from daily use. Size: I feel the cards are on the big-ish spectrum when it comes to Lenormand cards. With them being big, the smaller spreads are okay but the grand tableau is a bit much. It was also harder for me to shuffle effortlessly since my hands are smaller but my significant other has no problem there. The TYPO: There is an error regarding the suit on the Dog card. Ciro Marchetti has it as a 10 of spades when it should be a 10 of Hearts. There are TWO 10 of spades in this deck, the other being the Ship (Which is the proper ten of spades). Information Booklet: The booklet it comes with is nothing special but if you go to the artist's website he offers a downloadable pdf file of a more extensive guide. He expands on the meanings and gives some basic spreads to use. Now, regarding the booklet, something that I enjoyed was at the beginning of each card description, it was as if the card described itself. For example, for the crossroads (Choice as titled in this deck): "Decisions and choices are what I offer. Alternate directions are what I augur. I speak in multiple and double, and when I'm in a relationship I might be trouble." Packaging: I'm a box person so I was tickled pink about the packaging. The box also makes it good for traveling because its so sturdy. It should last a long time because it opens and closes via magnet. Review by: Alura Johnson, Wife of Christian Johnson