Why does the Rider Waite Smith deck have that blue plaid card back?

The gorgeous art of Pamela Colman Smith is intricate and full of symbolism. A common complaint is that the backs of the Rider Waite Smith tarot deck is boring blue plaid.

I’ve definitely complained about this in the past. I had a friend say he hated it so much that he wanted to re-cover each card by hand. (I’d love to hear what you think of it in the comments). But why does the deck even have this plain plaid backing?

Rider Waite Smith decks are manufactured by U.S. Games Systems Inc., which was founded in 1968 by the late Stuart R. Kaplan. If this name is familiar to you, that’s because Kaplan was the author of the famous Encyclopedia of Tarot, the Pamela Colman Smith Commemorative Set, and a bunch of other tarot books. A poster on tarotforum wrote to U.S. Games to ask why the backs of this beautiful deck are so blah. Here’s the response they got:

Re: Tarot Card Backs

Dear Mr. *****:
Thanks for the email. I spoke to Mr. Kaplan regarding the back design on the Rider Tarot. He explained that the tarotee (plaid) back is used because that was the original back design for the deck and he wanted to stay true to the original. There are no plans to change the back design of the Rider Tarot at this time.
Sincerely,
Jessica Sutton
Cust. Serv. Coordinator/
Claims Specialist
U.S. Games Systems, Inc.

I think it’s pretty awesome that Jessica Sutton spoke to Kaplan himself to get this info. Not only is there a specific name for this plaid (tarotee), but, according to Kaplan, that was the original design.

Okay but then why did Kaplan choose this as the design for the aforementioned Commemorative Set:

I like this backing better for a few reasons. One: it includes Pamela Colman Smith’s marvellous signature — her initials superimposed like a sigil. This signature appears on every card’s drawing (something I’m so glad she did so that she could get at least some credit for her drawings while she was alive). Having it in the corners of the back help to give further credit to the artist. The centre of the card back features the rose that appears on the flag on the Death card. The blue of the card is subdued and matches the colour scheme of the cards themselves. I can see why the Commemorative Set, meant to exalt and commemorate Pamela Colman Smith, would want to feature her signature. That checks out. So using the plaid back on the regular version because that was the original design seems reasonable.

Except the “Tarot Original 1909 deck,” made to “reproduce the deck as it was released in its first edition of 1909,” uses this back:

Because the 1909 “Roses & Lilies” deck had this back:

You’ll notice that the lilies on these backs are just like the lilies in The Magician card. According to WaiteSmith.org, on December 10th, 1909, this deck was “presented to the public” at an arts and crafts fair. The WaiteSmith blog explains that this deck was never mass-produced, as it was “akin to ‘proof copies’ of books made by publishers.” The “1910 A Deck” was published in March 1910, and was the first official publishing of the Rider Waite Smith Deck. Here’s what its back looked like:

This isn’t the blue plaid, either! This is supposedly supposed to look like “cracked mud” for reasons I don’t yet understand. I can’t tell if I like it better than the blue plaid, to be honest. In the 1920s and 30s, the “B Deck,” “C Deck,” and “D Deck” were printed — and their backs were the same as the “A Deck.”

So when did the blue plaid actually come on the scene??

It would seem that the first time the blue plaid back was used for the Rider Waite Smith Deck wasn’t until 1976, when it was published (and copyrighted) by U.S. Games Systems Inc.

That means that the “original” Kaplan was referring to in that email was… the one from 1976. That he made through the company he started.

On the U.S. Games Systems Inc. website, the biography of Kaplan says:

In 1968 while traveling for business in Europe, Stuart Kaplan attended the Nuremberg Toy Fair in search of game ideas and gifts for his children. He discovered an intriguing deck of cards unlike anything he had ever seen before. He brought the pack of Swiss 1JJ tarot back to New York and started selling it to bookstores.

The back of the Swiss 1JJ deck looks like this:

As you can see, these aren’t Pamela Colman Smith’s illustrations. But the biography goes on to explain that the Swiss 1JJ tarot deck sold very well, and that Kaplan decided to expand to other decks. WaiteSmith.org explains that the “Blue Box Rider Deck,” published c. 1976, was printed by AG Muller of Switzerland — the same printer who printed the Swiss 1JJ tarot deck. It was probably this deck that Kaplan thinks of as the “original” in his response in that email, and the one he used when he cloned it and started to sell it for U.S. Games Systems, Inc. It seems he was referring to the “original” published by his company, and not the original backs of the very first printing in the early 20th Century.

I admit that my response to the idea of keeping the plaid back in service of tradition when it comes to a deck printed in the 70s was to roll my eyes. Then I realized that it’s been 46 years since that deck was published, which is only 21 years shy of how much time had passed between the original deck’s pressing in 1909 and this one’s in 1976. Despite this, it’s not just the sense of history or age that I like about the Roses & Lilies back. It’s that it’s aesthetically much more interesting, produced by the artist, and not just boring plaid!

Which back to you like best? Let me know in the comments!