King of Pentacles

  • Arcana Minor
  • Suit Pentacles
  • Figure on this site The hoard-keeper
Historical evidence

In the earliest decks

The coins suit comes from the Latin suit system (coins, cups, swords and batons), which European card makers took from playing cards imported from Mamluk Egypt in the 1370s. In Italian it is denari. Esoteric tarot packs from late 18th-century France began to call the suit pentacles.

In the Visconti-Sforza deck, painted around 1450 in Milan by the workshop of Bonifacio Bembo, the King of Coins is an enthroned, full-length figure holding a large gold coin. His robe carries a Visconti emblem of blue ribbons wound around suns. He is the only king in that deck shown without a ducal-type crown. The figure is not thought to portray a named person. The deck's court ranks are King, Queen, Knight and Knave.

In the Sola Busca deck (engraved around 1490 and painted, it is thought, in 1491) every court card carries a name. Its King of Coins is labelled R. Filipo, linked to Philip II of Macedon.

Historical evidence

The Rider-Waite-Smith card

Pamela Colman Smith drew the Rider-Waite-Smith minor arcana around 1909. Photographs of the whole Sola Busca deck reached the British Museum in 1907, where Smith and A. E. Waite probably saw them, and some scholars think its fully illustrated plain-suit cards inspired Smith’s scenes.

Waite’s own note on this king is short. He says the figure needs no special description, remarks on the rather dark face, and notes a bull’s head on the throne. He explains that the suit’s sign is engraved with a pentagram, and says that many older packs called the suit coins and that he did not invent the change to pentacles.

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: material mastery, steady abundance, wise wealth, earned security

The hoard-keeper has genuine material mastery, abundance held with a steady hand rather than anxious grasping. This card celebrates real wealth, in resources, skill, or security, managed wisely and enjoyed without guilt. If you've built real material stability, this is permission to actually feel good about it.

In general: Real material success has been achieved and is being managed wisely. There's no need to feel uneasy about enjoying it.

In love: A relationship with real material and practical stability, built and managed well by both people together.

In work: Genuine professional or financial mastery, achieved and now being stewarded with confidence and care.

Reversed

Keywords: hoarding, inability to enjoy abundance, tight grip on resources, anxious wealth

Wealth held too tightly to actually be enjoyed defeats the entire point of having built it. The reversed hoard-keeper has resources but can't relax into them, still grasping out of old habit even when the actual danger that justified the grasping has passed. The abundance is real; the enjoyment of it is what's missing.

In general: Resources have been secured, but the anxious grip on them is preventing any actual enjoyment of what's been built.

In love: Material security in a relationship that's being guarded so tightly that it can't actually be shared or enjoyed.

In work: Professional success that's being managed with so much caution that it's stopped feeling like an achievement at all.

Unsure whether this card represents a person or an approach? Read our guide to tarot court cards.

Draw a card for a reading · How to read cards together · Reversed cards