Robin Wood deck - first impressions.

OK, I'm typing this as I open the packaging, so this is my real first impression.  It's from Amazon, so off comes the basic Amazon cardboard outer.... to reveal the cards in their shrink-wrapped box.  I hate this sort of shrink-wrapping, it's a pain to get off.... a few minutes later, I'm in.  the box is nice and smooth, feels like it's good quality.  The box is nice one - front opening instead of top-opening, so it's easier to keep the cards inside that box.

Opening up, there's a small black-and-white leaflet as opposed to a book.  The meanings for each of the cards are laid out clearly, with singular keywords picked out in bold for the pips.  I tend to read through intuition alone, so I won't be referring to that very often, but it's useful to have anyway.  The back of the booklet contains three spreads - a 15 card, the CC, and a 5 card specific question spread.

The cards themselves are also wrapped, facing upwards with the fool on top.  The cards are a good size - a bit bigger than normal I think, but not too big that they can't be handled with ease.  Unwrapping them, the cardstock feels good and smooth, well printed and not too thick.  The quality of the drawing and printing is beautiful, and very typical of Robin Wood.  

Going through the deck there are some cards that jump out as my instant favourites (just from the majors) - The Magician, the High Priestess, The Lovers (I love the Yin and Yang of the male/female, moon/sun) Strength, The Hermit, Justice, Death (the most beautiful version of Death I have seen in a deck for a long time, and reminds me of my own name, Winter Rose) and The Star.  The minors are incredibly readable and beautiful - I think I might end up using this deck now as my main deck.  There are also two extra cards which have the 5-card spread and the 15 card.

As for the backs of the cards, although I'm not keen on the green, they're not as bad as some people make it out to be.  All in all, I'm impressed with the deck, and I'll be trying a reading with them later.