Pentacles, Coins, or Disks? The Tarot Suit Names Explained

Why does your tarot deck say "Coins" or "Disks" instead of "Pentacles"? Because tarot 3 of coins, Three of Pentacles, and Three of Disks are the exact same card. Pentacles, Coins, and Disks are three names for a single suit, born from three different deck traditions. The element is Earth, the themes are money and work, and the card meanings stay identical no matter what label the printer put on the box.

We have shipped tarot decks to more than 68,000 buyers on Etsy, holding a 4.9-star rating across 20,000+ reviews, and "which version is correct?" is one of the most common questions in our inbox. This article explains why the three names exist, shows the gotcha inside Crowley's court card system, and gives you the meaning of each named card you searched for: the 3 of Coins, the 5 of Coins, the 9 of Disks, and the Knight of Disks.

Pentacles, Coins, and Disks: Three Names, One Suit

The suit covers the Earth element and everything in the material plane: money, work, the body, home, and possessions. Each tradition gave it a different symbol on the card face, which is how the three names arose. The suit has 14 cards in every version, Ace through 10 plus four court cards, and the meanings are consistent across all three systems. If you know the Three of Pentacles, you know the tarot 3 of coins and the Three of Disks. Same message, different label.

Readers often land on one name because of the deck they started with. Marseille players say Coins. Smith-Waite beginners say Pentacles. Thoth practitioners say Disks. None of them is wrong. The card you drew is the card you drew. Our Tarot Card Meanings hub lists all 78 cards and notes where these naming differences come up, so you can cross-reference whichever deck you hold.

Coins: The Original Italian Name

Coins is the oldest of the three names. The suit appeared in 15th-century Italian card packs as Denari (money), rendered as simple round discs with no pentagram. When French workshops took over printing in the 1600s and 1700s, they called the same suit Deniers, still just coins. The Tarot de Marseille tradition carried this naming forward, which is why anyone reading from a Marseille-pattern deck or an older Italian-style deck will see Coins rather than Pentacles. The symbol is a round disc, sometimes with a cross or design, but no five-pointed star anywhere on it.

This matters because the Marseille tradition predates occult tarot by centuries. The Coins suit was always about trade, craft, and material life, long before Western esotericism added numerological and astrological correspondences. If your deck says Coins, you are holding the older, plainer, more historical version of the suit.

Our Tarot de Marseille Vintage Edition ($34.99) reproduces the historic woodcut look on modern 300GSM cardstock. All 78 cards, including the full Coins suit (Ace through King), come with a printed guidebook in the box.

Pentacles: Rider-Waite-Smith's Esoteric Upgrade

In 1909, A.E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith published their now-famous Rider-Waite-Smith deck, and they renamed the Coins suit Pentacles. The change was intentional. Waite was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the five-pointed star (pentagram) carried specific ceremonial meaning in that tradition. Replacing the plain round coin with a pentacle-bearing disc signalled that the suit was not just about money but about the full relationship between spirit and matter, the material world as sacred ground.

Smith illustrated every Minor card with a narrative scene, including each Pentacles card, which made the suit far easier to read intuitively. The RWS became the most widely copied tarot system in the world, so most modern decks, books, and online resources use Pentacles as the default name. If you learned tarot from a guidebook published after 1909, you almost certainly learned Pentacles.

Our Smith-Waite Tarot Borderless Vintage ($34.99) carries those original illustrated scenes on thick eco linen cardstock, borderless for a clean modern look. Buyers call the cardstock "thick" and the images "gorgeous" across thousands of reviews. This is the deck we recommend to first-time readers. And if you want to understand how the suit fits the broader 78-card structure, our article on why there are 78 cards in a tarot deck covers all four suits in context.

Disks: Crowley's Thoth Reinvention

Aleister Crowley designed the Thoth Tarot in the 1940s, painted by Lady Frieda Harris, with the deck published posthumously in 1969. Crowley renamed the suit Disks, not to contradict Waite but to emphasize a different quality: the disk as a spinning wheel, matter in motion, the physical world as dynamic and alive rather than static. Harris's geometric paintings give each Disk card an almost architectural quality, dense with astrology and Kabbalistic symbolism.

The Thoth court card system is where readers run into real confusion. Crowley renamed all four courts. RWS and Marseille use Page, Knight, Queen, King. Thoth uses Princess, Prince, Queen, Knight. Here is the critical fact: the Knight of Disks in Thoth corresponds to the King of Pentacles in RWS, not the Knight of Pentacles. Crowley's Knight is the mature authority figure, the stable elder. His Prince is the equivalent of the RWS Knight (energetic movement). His Princess is the equivalent of the RWS Page (young, receptive energy).

This matters most when you look up the knight of disks tarot meaning and find conflicting descriptions. If you are reading from a Thoth deck, your Knight of Disks is the king-equivalent. If you have an RWS deck and drew the Knight of Pentacles, that card corresponds to the Thoth's Prince of Disks. Keep that one distinction clear and the meanings snap into alignment across all three systems.

3 of Coins Meaning (Three of Pentacles, Three of Disks)

The tarot 3 of coins means teamwork and the recognition of skilled work. In the RWS image, an apprentice stonemason stands in a cathedral doorway while an architect and a monk review the plans: three different roles, one shared project. The message is that what you are building requires collaboration, and your particular skill is being seen. You are past the stage of working alone in a forest, past the stage of hoping, and into the stage where others acknowledge what you bring to the craft.

Marseille readers find the same meaning in their 3 of Coins: three coins arranged in a triangle, pointing toward first tangible results from skilled effort. Thoth readers see the Three of Disks through the lens of "Works," astrologically linked to Mars in Capricorn, ambition meeting structure. Every name, the same message: your craft is real and it is being recognized. For more on the Earth suit's full range of meanings, our Tarot Card Meanings hub goes card by card through all 14 positions.

5 of Coins Meaning (Five of Pentacles, Five of Disks)

The 5 of coins tarot meaning is hardship and the feeling of being shut out. In the RWS Five of Pentacles, two ragged figures trudge through snow past a lit church window. They are cold, struggling, possibly ill. What readers notice on closer inspection: the window is glowing warmly. Help exists. The door is close. The card does not promise that everything will be fine, but it does say that warmth is available if you can turn your head and ask for it.

Marseille readers searching for 5 of coins tarot meaning will find this same energy in the five-coin arrangement: imbalance, a scattered structure, material instability that has not yet found its floor. Thoth readers see the Five of Disks as "Worry," Saturn in Taurus, the fear of material loss that sometimes outlasts the actual loss. Whichever deck you hold, the advice is the same: look for the lit window. See our cartomancy companion piece at cartomancy meanings and the 52-card chart for how the Five of Diamonds maps onto this same territory.

9 of Disks Meaning (Nine of Pentacles, Nine of Coins)

The nine of disks tarot meaning is self-sufficiency and earned luxury. The RWS image shows an elegantly dressed woman standing alone in a walled garden, a trained falcon perched on her gloved hand. She is not waiting for anyone. She built this, through years of patient work, and now she stands in it, comfortable, complete. The card speaks of independence that was earned rather than inherited, comfort that has roots, a life you made without shortcuts.

Thoth readers will find the Nine of Disks titled "Gain," Venus in Virgo, the beauty of precision and discipline producing tangible reward. Marseille readers see 9 of Coins as the final stage before completion, nine coins arranged in a pattern suggesting abundance on the verge of fullness. All three name the same quiet triumph: a lunar candle burning in a room you furnished yourself, long discipline made visible.

Knight of Disks Meaning (and the Court Card Gotcha)

The knight of disks tarot meaning depends entirely on which deck you hold. In the Thoth system, the Knight of Disks is the mature, authority-figure equivalent of the King of Pentacles in RWS. He is described as a heavy, armored farmer-king: reliable, methodical, slow to move but immovable once settled, a man who understands land and harvest cycles in ways a young rider never could. If your Thoth deck shows you the Knight of Disks, you are looking at the king archetype of Earth, not a youthful knight.

If you have a Rider-Waite-Smith deck and you drew the Knight of Pentacles, that is a different energy: a young man on a heavy horse, holding a pentacle and moving at a deliberate pace, reliable and thorough but not yet a king. He is persistent and methodical, but he is still becoming rather than arrived. Many readers mix these up when searching online: they draw a Thoth Knight of Disks, look up "knight of pentacles" in an RWS guide, and get a meaningfully different description. The fix is simple: know your deck's system before you search. Our article on how to read tarot with playing cards covers how these court card equivalences work in a wider context.

Which Suit Name Should You Use?

Use whichever name matches your deck. Marseille buyers say Coins. Smith-Waite beginners say Pentacles. Thoth practitioners and ceremonially trained readers say Disks. The card meanings stay the same. The only practical rule is consistency: pick the name from your deck's system and apply it throughout your reading. Mixing names mid-session is how readers confuse themselves, not how they get better readings.

If you are researching a card you drew and the search returns mixed names, look at the number and trust it. The Three is always about teamwork and recognition, the Five is always about hardship and hidden help, the Nine is always about earned comfort. Suit name is a label on the tin. The flavor inside does not change. For the full map of all 78 cards across the RWS system, our free guide to why there are 78 cards in a tarot deck shows how all four suits and both Arcanas fit together.

FAQ: Pentacles, Coins, and Disks

One suit, three names, and a whole Earth tradition behind each of them. Whichever deck sits on your nightstand or altar tonight, the cards are speaking the same language. Our decks ship from USA and Europe warehouses with 1-2 day processing, and returns are accepted within 14 days. Join 68,000+ readers who started their divination practice with a Dark Forest deck, and use code STAR20 for 20% off.

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