3 of Pentacles

  • Arcana Minor
  • Suit Pentacles
  • Figure on this site The first carving
Historical evidence

In the earliest decks

The suit now called Pentacles began as the Italian suit of coins, denari. Italian card suits trace back to Mamluk Egypt, whence playing cards reached Italy in the 1370s. The Mamluk suits were cups, coins, swords and polo-sticks, and Italians replaced the unfamiliar polo-sticks with batons. The name “pentacles” belongs to occult tarot and has no basis in the suit’s use in card games.

In the Visconti-Sforza deck of about 1450, attributed to the workshop of Bonifacio Bembo, the Three of Coins is a plain pip card: three gold coins arranged decoratively on a patterned ground, with no figures and no scene. One writer notes that its sun-like coin faces are painted more roughly than on the other Coins cards.

The first tarot deck known to illustrate every numbered card is the Sola Busca, engraved in the late fifteenth century and hand-coloured around 1491, probably in Venice, by an unknown artist. Its Three of Coins therefore carries a picture, unlike the older plain pips. The deck had little influence on mainstream tarot for centuries, but photographs of it reached the British Museum in 1907, and A. E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith are thought to have seen them.

Historical evidence

The Rider-Waite-Smith card

Pamela Colman Smith drew the Three of Pentacles for Waite’s deck. Unlike the plain three coins of the Visconti-Sforza card, it is a scene: a craftsman at work, with figures looking on. Waite’s own book describes it as a sculptor at work in a monastery and tells the reader to compare the Eight of Pentacles, where the same kind of worker is shown as an apprentice.

Smith and Waite probably saw photographs of the Sola Busca deck, and some scholars think she drew on it for several of the illustrated numbered cards.

Myth and literature · Quotation

Waite’s description

A sculptor at his work in a monastery. Compare the design which illustrates the Eight of Pentacles. The apprentice or amateur therein has received his reward and is now at work in earnest.

Modern interpretation

As read on this site

This is the meaning used for readings here. Using the tarot to divine is a modern practice, and the Norse figure shown for each card is this site’s own association; the tarot began as an Italian card game. A short history is on the Tarot page.

Upright

Keywords: early collaboration, rough but sound, building together, foundational teamwork

The first carving is rough, made by people still learning to work together, but it's structurally sound, which is what actually matters at this stage. Early collaborative work doesn't need to be polished; it needs to hold. If this is the beginning of something built with others, trust the foundation even if the surface is unrefined.

In general: Early-stage collaborative effort is unrefined but structurally solid. The foundation matters more than the polish right now.

In love: A relationship still working out its rhythm, imperfect in execution but built on something genuinely solid underneath.

In work: A new team or partnership finding its footing. The early work is rough, but the structure underneath it is sound.

Reversed

Keywords: coordination failure, misaligned effort, wasted individual work, communication breakdown

Effort undermined by poor coordination wastes good individual work through a failure to actually align it with everyone else's. The carving doesn't hold, not because any one person did poorly, but because nobody synced their cuts. This needs better communication, not more individual effort.

In general: Good individual effort is being undermined by a lack of coordination. The fix is alignment, not more work.

In love: Both people trying, in good faith, but pulling in directions that aren't actually coordinated with each other.

In work: A team where individual contributions are solid but not properly synchronized, costing the overall result.

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