Deck Review: Golden Masquerade Tarot

Golden Masquerade Tarot.  Florida: Craft Cards Store. (No ISBN on item; link to publisher. You can also find their decks on Amazon).

Genre: Tarot, cartomancy

Subgenre: carnival, masquerade, independent deck

Format: kit with small book and deck

Source: I own this one  

Two of Swords

I first used this deck in March 2026. This is one of those decks I found by serendipity. In other words, I was looking for something else online, and this came as a suggestion. For a devotee of the Cosmic Joker like me, a deck with a carnival and masquerade theme made sense. So between that and a reasonable to me price for an indie deck I decided to get it. 

Let me get an issue out of the way. A reviewer or two on Amazon have speculated this deck may be AI art. The company neither confirms nor denies, and take an Amazon review for what it may be worth. If the speculation had been confirmed I might have avoided it, but it looked nice enough, and I did not hear about the issue until I got it and used it. This is one where I will let readers decide about the deck. I am reviewing it as I used it. 

The kit comes with a small paperback companion book and the 78-card deck. The book has 96 pages, and it is very basic. It is arranged as follows: 

• How to use the cards. Brief advice on how to use and read the cards. 
• Traditional full Tarot deck. Just a very brief description of a Tarot deck's structure.
• Reversed card position interpretation. A small list of ways to interpret reversals if you choose to use them. 
• Card entries. We get the Major Arcana entries followed by Minor Arcana entries by suit: wands, cups, swords, and pentacles. All entries have same content: a paragraph of upright interpretations and another paragraph for reversed interpretations. 

The book is very basic. Card entries offer basic interpretations and nothing more. No symbols, card descriptions, nor any other additional details are offered. No illustrations are included. It is as plain as they come, but it does the job if you need some guidance. Can you read the cards without the book? Yes, most likely. I read it anyhow, and I can say it can be optional. 

The cards look quite nice, and if you like the carnival and masquerade theme, you might like this deck too. The art is colorful, yet a bit muted; it is not bright art. The faces show a range of emotions. Most faces will have a mask somehow, which can include face painting. IN the end, the deck worked well for me. 

The Magician-I

The card art falls within Rider Waite Smith (RWS) tradition, but there are some cards that do a bit of their own thing. Given the detailed art, which is a bit playful, I'd say it can work for intuitive readers. 

The deck worked for me when I was using it. It it is a decent reader for me. Would I use it again? Yes, I would use it again down the road. This is a deck you could use year round. Not sure yet if I can use it with other decks such as oracle decks, though as I think about it now, a deck like the Divine Circus Oracle could work with this one. I may need to work with the deck a bit more to see what other decks I could use in combination. 

The cards measure about 4 3/4 inches by 2 3/4 inches. The card stock is a bit on the thick side. The thick card stock does feel durable. The art has a soft matte finish, and the cards shuffle with relative ease. The card art is borderless. The deck features a golden gilding. Art on the card back is reversible. 

4 out of 5 stars.