Smith-Waite Borderless Tarot — by Pamela Colman Smith

Short description:

Smith-Waite Borderless Tarot by Pamela Colman Smith — this edition of the original Rider-Waite-Smith artwork removes the white borders to allow Pamela Colman Smith’s iconic illustrations to fill every card edge-to-edge. The result is a more immersive, visually expansive reading experience while maintaining absolute fidelity to the century-old imagery. An essential for RWS purists and those who want the classic with a modern presentation update.

Description:

Quick Specs

• Artist: Pamela Colman Smith (1909)
• Publisher: U.S. Games Systems
• Contents: 84 cards (78 tarot plus 4 bonus art cards) and instruction booklet
• Best for: Beginners, intermediate readers, study, intuitive full-bleed reading

Pamela Colman Smith and the Source Code of Tarot

In 1909, a Jamaican-British artist named Pamela Colman Smith sat down and illustrated 78 cards that would become the most reproduced deck of images in the history of Western divination. She worked under the direction of Arthur Edward Waite, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, for the Rider Company publisher, which is why the deck became known as the Rider-Waite. What most buyers don't know is that Smith, who went by the nickname Pixie, was a professional illustrator and stage designer who had studied at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and was deeply embedded in the turn-of-the-century arts community. Her contribution has been historically undercredited, largely because she was a woman of color working in an era that did not preserve attribution carefully. The Smith-Waite name used in this edition is a deliberate correction of that record.

The deck's influence on tarot is structural, not stylistic. Roughly eighty percent of the tarot decks published in the past century, including every deck in my collection, use the Rider-Waite-Smith as their foundational template. The Major Arcana numbering, the pip illustrations, the court card figures, and the directional symbolism all originate in Smith's 1909 artwork. When you purchase any other illustrated tarot deck and notice it has a scene on the Ten of Pentacles showing a family outside a castle, or a woman blindfolded on the Two of Swords, those scenes trace directly back to Smith's original compositions.

The Borderless Format and What It Changes

The traditional bordered edition of the Rider-Waite-Smith has white margins around each card that create visual separation between the image and the reader's hands. The borderless edition removes those margins, allowing the artwork to run edge to edge. For readers who work with intuitive methods, letting multiple cards flow together without the visual interruption of frames helps the eye track compositional relationships across the spread. The figure on the Six of Cups looking toward the Six of Swords reads differently when nothing separates the two images from each other. This is why many experienced readers trim the borders from standard decks with scissors; the borderless edition does that work for you from the factory.

This edition also includes four bonus cards reproducing samples of Smith's non-tarot artwork, including watercolor paintings titled Catch Me and Duet, an illustration from the play Deirdre, and a piece from sheet music for Christmas Carol. These cards are not part of the 78-card tarot proper, but they give you a direct look at Smith's artistic range beyond the deck. Browse my tarot deck collection to compare this foundational deck alongside art-forward alternatives if you're deciding between learning on the source and starting with a more stylized edition.

How to Use the Smith-Waite Borderless Tarot

The Tarot Fellow Standard

I stock the Smith-Waite Borderless because it is the single deck that makes every other tarot resource universally accessible. If someone reads this deck, they can pick up any tarot book written in the past hundred years and the descriptions will match what's in their hands. The borderless format is a practical improvement over the standard edition, and the inclusion of Smith's non-tarot artwork makes it a more complete archive of her work. If you want to supplement your practice with written study material that goes deeper than the included booklet, explore my tarot divination books for titles that use this exact deck as their primary reference.

Frequently Asked Questions