Jean Noblet

Only one copy survives. The archive records the Noblet as the oldest known Marseille-style tarot, Paris around 1650, held in the French national collection, which makes every modern Noblet a reconstruction rather than a reprint. The Flornoy version is the best known of them, and the work involved sits closer to restoration than to design. That changes what you are buying. A reconstruction carries the restorer's judgment in every line where the original is damaged or ambiguous, so the deck is simultaneously a historical document and a claim about what that document said. Marseille readers tend to care intensely about exactly this, which is why the tradition sustains several competing reconstructions of the same object. It suits Marseille readers who want the earliest surviving pattern, students of tarot's printed history, and anyone who would rather read from a restored artifact than a modern interpretation. Anyone wanting a clean modern line will find the period roughness a feature they did not ask for.