Ace of Pentacles: tarot card meaning

In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Ace of Pentacles upright means: Perfect contentment, felicity, ecstasy; also speedy intelligence; gold. Reversed: The evil side of wealth, bad intelligence; also great riches. In any case it shews prosperity, comfortable material conditions, but whether these are of advantage to the possessor will depend on whether the card is reversed or not.

The picture

“A hand (issuing, as usual, from a cloud) holds up a pentacle.” A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1910

Upright

Perfect contentment, felicity, ecstasy; also speedy intelligence; gold.

Waite's additional meanings: The most favourable of all cards.

Reversed

The evil side of wealth, bad intelligence; also great riches. In any case it shews prosperity, comfortable material conditions, but whether these are of advantage to the possessor will depend on whether the card is reversed or not.

Waite's additional meanings, reversed: A share in the finding of treasure.

In one line

Perfect contentment, and gold. (Esbat's own summary of Waite's meaning and picture.)

Where it sits in the deck

The Ace of Pentacles is the first card of the suit of Pentacles, one of the 56 Minor Arcana. The other Aces: Ace of Wands, Ace of Cups, Ace of Swords.

In Esbat

Esbat deals a card of the day, face down until you turn it, and holds all 78 cards in the 1910 pictures with Waite's meanings, upright and reversed. The Ace of Pentacles can be shared as a picture. All 78 tarot card meanings.

Sources

Meanings and picture descriptions: A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1910), public domain, checked against the Wikisource transcription. Picture: Pamela Colman Smith, 1910, public domain. Like the app, this page records what the book says; it does not promise outcomes.

Last updated October 25, 2026.

Esbat: Tarot & Book of Shadows, on Google Play

A card of the day, face down until you turn it, and all 78 cards in the 1910 pictures with Waite's meanings, upright and reversed. For Android.

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