Tigers by Kings Wild Project

[theCapraAegagrus]

Just bloating the topic with more crap.

On the contrary he is pointing out some good information and filling this topic with facts. When new decks are posted that don't meet your standards you certainly don't hesitate to label them "crap" without so much as offering any constructive criticism whatsoever. Just because you adore certain artists, i.e. Jackson, doesn't mean they're immune to criticism. If you don't like sinjin's comments, IGNORE THEM.

I disagree. He filled that post with a lot of unnecessary garbage concerning an alleged personal relationship with JR. It didn't provide any legitimate reason to be concerned with him printing cards with USPCC. And, unfortunately, I don't have the time to redesign entire decks for other people attempting to fund their campaigns. I've said it about 50 times that I don't adore JR, and in fact, try to avoid his recent decks. The agenda of calling people things like "apologists" and "lovers" of someone, for defending a good choice of a creator, is just malarkey.

[sinjin7]

Everyone will complain about everything these days. Apparently there's no satisfying you.

You can go to your room now, child, the adults are speaking.

What do you contribute here at UC, other than to crap on decks and offend designers to the point where they don't want to come to UC anymore? You're the king of complainers here and I, for one, am getting tired of your opinionated tantrums. Do you really want to compare your contributions here at UC with mine? You don't want to go there.

[vasta41]

Just bloating the topic with more crap.

On the contrary he is pointing out some good information and filling this topic with facts. When new decks are posted that don't meet your standards you certainly don't hesitate to label them "crap" without so much as offering any constructive criticism whatsoever. Just because you adore certain artists, i.e. Jackson, doesn't mean they're immune to criticism. If you don't like sinjin's comments, IGNORE THEM.

I disagree. He filled that post with a lot of unnecessary garbage concerning an alleged personal relationship with JR. It didn't provide any legitimate reason to be concerned with him printing cards with USPCC. And, unfortunately, I don't have the time to redesign entire decks for other people attempting to fund their campaigns. I've said it about 50 times that I don't adore JR, and in fact, try to avoid his recent decks. The agenda of calling people things like "apologists" and "lovers" of someone for defending a good choice of a creator is just malarkey.

When artists switch between printing companies I don't think it's out of the realm of possibilities to discus and ask why. In fact that type of questioning and answering is extremely useful AND encouraged. Whether or not YOU think something is a good choice doesn't mean it shouldn't be discussed.

And for the record everyone had 0% interest in Flywheels. I'm exaggerating but you get my point.

[theCapraAegagrus]

Just bloating the topic with more crap.

On the contrary he is pointing out some good information and filling this topic with facts. When new decks are posted that don't meet your standards you certainly don't hesitate to label them "crap" without so much as offering any constructive criticism whatsoever. Just because you adore certain artists, i.e. Jackson, doesn't mean they're immune to criticism. If you don't like sinjin's comments, IGNORE THEM.

I disagree. He filled that post with a lot of unnecessary garbage concerning an alleged personal relationship with JR. It didn't provide any legitimate reason to be concerned with him printing cards with USPCC. And, unfortunately, I don't have the time to redesign entire decks for other people attempting to fund their campaigns. I've said it about 50 times that I don't adore JR, and in fact, try to avoid his recent decks. The agenda of calling people things like "apologists" and "lovers" of someone for defending a good choice of a creator is just malarkey.

When artists switch between printing companies I don't think it's out of the realm of possibilities to discus and ask why. In fact that type of questioning and answering is extremely useful AND encouraged. Whether or not YOU think something is a good choice doesn't mean it shouldn't be discussed.

And for the record everyone had 0% interest in Flywheels. I'm exaggerating but you get my point.

I'm not disagreeing with this. When someone is hyper-critical of JR, though, as sinjin always is, raising concern with these decks being printed by the company with arguably the best reputation, just doesn't make sense to me. It just looks like blowing smoke to make it look like there's a fire. JR has printed with both USPCC and EPCC on-and-off for a while. Obviously we're not going to get answers directly from JR here, so what's the end game?

I mean, Lorenzo is printing 2 decks from the same campaign with USPCC and EPCC, should we be making a fuss about that? I would just like the criticism to make sense. Tigers have weird legs? Valid. JR prints with USPCC? Huh? How is that a valid criticism..?

That's the last that I'll say about this particular subject. Sinjin likes to believe that he can force a conversation to continue with an unwilling participant. That's not going to happen here, either.

Moving on...

[TheGentlemanWake]

I mean, Lorenzo is printing 2 decks from the same campaign with USPCC and EPCC, should we be making a fuss about that?

It's actually USPCC and Cartamundi. IF you are talking about HoS that is.

[vasta41]

When someone is hyper-critical of JR, though, as sinjin always is, raising concern with these decks being printed by the company with arguably the best reputation, just doesn't make sense to me. It just looks like blowing smoke to make it look like there's a fire.

I'm pretty sure the Legal Tender debacle is what merits his concerns. It was a lousy switcheroo that left a sour taste in a lot of peoples mouths. As you said, he never came here to explain so all we can do is speculate. And after that incident I find it wise to question JR's printing co. decisions. Not ridicule, not harass, but question. And that's all that's being done here. That and speculating. But again, since he won't come here speculating is all we can do.

I would also argue that sinjin is hyper-critical of everyone, not just JR. I assume it's the lawyer in him!

[theCapraAegagrus]

I mean, Lorenzo is printing 2 decks from the same campaign with USPCC and EPCC, should we be making a fuss about that?

It's actually USPCC and Cartamundi. IF you are talking about HoS that is.

Yez... I'm an idiot. <Don't quote me on this, though.

[sinjin7]

What make me really curious is why isn't he using EPCC? I guess selling 1000 "limited" decks to make $39,000.00 helps offset the profit margin from the Asian printers.

Well... Considering how controversial some of his EPCC decks have been lately... How is this even a question..?

It's clear here that you're the one who started this line of conversation.

That's the last that I'll say about this particular subject. Sinjin likes to believe that he can force a conversation to continue with an unwilling participant. That's not going to happen here, either.

Moving on...

I've given my reason as to why I'm curious about this switch based on Jackson's own words and history and based upon my relationship with Jackson (nothing alleged about it, by the way, I still have all the PM's and emails and his personal number), but you missed the point, which is not unusual. This is a pattern I notice with you: you get into it with members and throw a hissy fit, and then when the heat goes up you declare you're done with the conversation and will say no more (although you can't help yourself and still do at times), basically picking up your toys and leaving the sandbox. I, nor anyone else here at UC, need your permission to talk about a topic or be curious about anything. Again, if you want to do a comparison between you and me as to who makes more substantive posts (or who makes more posts filled with garbage), I'm here all day, any day, baby.

If you don't want to listen to me, then at least take some good advice from Mark Twain: “It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.”

[theCapraAegagrus]

What make me really curious is why isn't he using EPCC? I guess selling 1000 "limited" decks to make $39,000.00 helps offset the profit margin from the Asian printers.

Well... Considering how controversial some of his EPCC decks have been lately... How is this even a question..?

It's clear here that you're the one who started this line of conversation.

That's the last that I'll say about this particular subject. Sinjin likes to believe that he can force a conversation to continue with an unwilling participant. That's not going to happen here, either.

Moving on...

I've given my reason as to why I'm curious about this switch based on Jackson's own words and history and based upon my relationship with Jackson (nothing alleged about it, by the way, I still have all the PM's and emails and his personal number), but you missed the point, which is not unusual. This is a pattern I notice with you: you get into it with members and throw a hissy fit, and then when the heat goes up you declare you're done with the conversation and will say no more (although you can't help yourself and still do at times), basically picking up your toys and leaving the sandbox. I, nor anyone else here at UC, need your permission to talk about a topic or be curious about anything. Again, if you want to do a comparison between you and me as to who makes more substantive posts (or who makes more posts filled with garbage), I'm here all day, any day, baby.

If you don't want to listen to me, then at least take some good advice from Mark Twain: “It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.”

[Bradius]

Don't mind me...

[ICantShuffle]

To actually address sinjin's comments, I think the reason we're seeing Jackson shift to USPCC is for a couple reasons:

JR's own Legal Tender and Encarded's Radia incidences come to mind.

Consumer attitudes towards goods made "overseas" have shifted significantly in the last decade or so (some for political reasons, others for social, environmental, and economic reasons) making the market overall less viable for those goods (I realize playing cards are a global market, so this is a generalization).

Possible regulatory uncertainties in the future (shipping, tariffs, etc.) that present a real economic risk to him as a small business.

"Cardistry" has brought a large group of younger consumers into the playing card market, many of them follow YouTube/Twitter/Twitch "influencers" that definitely harp on the USPCC pedigree. Not saying it's not there or isn't real, I know that a cheap deck of bikes or tallys personally feels amazing in my hands for what they cost. You're seeing a market reaction to that (all the new cardistry focused decks, and other printers offering designs and finishes specifically to capture some of that audience). Would make sense for Jackson to move that direction too, especially if he plans to continue making income in this market over the long run.

As montenzi pointed out, I would imagine that smaller print runs offer less of a price advantage manufacturing overseas when it comes to freight and distribution, since marginal shipping costs increases as your order size decreases.

Add to the culmination of the above reasons, and, correct me as I am probably not as well versed as others here on this artist's history, but weren't his most successful decks USPCC printed?

P.S. I like my Flywheels. :/

[sinjin7]

First of all, thank you for a mature conversation. Again, I'm not sure the negative backlash he got for Legal Tender fazed him whatsoever, so I don't know how major a factor that was in switching to USPCC for Tigers. Jackson had expressed interest to me in the past about making a deck specifically for cardistry (and I think he could've done an amazing job), but he never followed through and I don't think his target demographic is cardists anyways, his decks are way too expensive to be user decks. The prospect of future tariffs and trade wars impacting playing card producers could have a huge impact on how and where cards are made, so that's a very interesting point.

With all due respect to Montenzi, I've spoken to a few deck designers, and they all have told me when you're printing 1000 decks, EPCC is substantially less than USPCC. If you're going with highly blinged out tuck boxes, even in higher quantities EPCC is still cheaper. Once you hit 5000+ decks with moderate tucks, that's when USPCC pricing could be comparable, or even cheaper depending on the features, to EPCC on a per deck basis. I've also had deck artists tell me it's actually cheaper to ship 1000's of decks from China to California than it is to ship the same amount of decks domestically from Kentucky to California. Apparently it's dirt cheap to ship goods by boat from China to the US, you just have to wait an additional month. But I'm not a deck producer and Montenzi probably has access to more recent pricing info than I do.

On a purely money basis you are correct, Jackson's KS projects with decks made by the USPCC significantly out earned his Asian-produced KS projects, so this may very well be the cause for the switch. Or he just didn't want to mess with the original Tiger 101 trademarks. Given his loyalty to Kalush and EPCC/LPCC, if he's switching over back to the USPCC for most of his future decks, that would be significant news, especially for a designer of Jackson's fame and caliber.

[ICantShuffle]

I liked that you raised an interesting question, and I really am not attached to an outcome other than to explore the subject a little bit. So, you're welcome.

Once you hit 5000+ decks with moderate tucks, that's when USPCC pricing could be comparable, or even cheaper depending on the features, to EPCC on a per deck basis. I've also had deck artists tell me it's actually cheaper to ship 1000's of decks from China to California than it is to ship the same amount of decks domestically from Kentucky to California. Apparently it's dirt cheap to ship goods by boat from China to the US, you just have to wait an additional month. But I'm not a deck producer and Montenzi probably has access to more recent pricing info than I do.

I can see that, but I think I may have misworded my original post. Smaller shipments cost more per unit to ship, since, yes, FOB space from China can be had quite cheaply, but is less economical if you're not doing a print run greater than X (hopefully that makes it more clear). But, the overall difference in production/packaging probably offsets the difference such that it's still overall cheaper to produce overseas. Again, I'm not operating on specific knowledge, but general theory.

Another thought I had while reading your post:

Recall the recent warehouse fire that caused a massive loss in stock. That might be another risk he's attempting to mitigate. Fires can happen anywhere, but I do know that most U.S. states have pretty hard-learned and well thought out regulations regarding building codes. More importantly, insurance industry is massive here, so insuring the stock against loss domestically might be cheaper too. I'm probably grasping at straws here, but I deal with questions like these on a pretty regular basis for work, so force of habit.

You're probably right about the trademarks, that would be a primary factor for risk to a project (IP infringement) and the others I mentioned are probably tertiary or ancillary, if considered at all.

I don't dislike Cartamundi or LPCC/EPCC, but generally prefer USPCC as well-- I kind of wish it were more like the "old days" (pre-Erlanger, KY) where they offered more than one or two stocks and one varnish. In my ideal world, USPCC would offer all of the old finishes and stocks, and all tucks would be printed by either Clove St. Press or Oath/Lotrek.

[Bradius]

The deck below (Old Frizzle I think) and others remind me of the deck design that Jackson Robinson seems to be going for. Note the Jack of Spades spindly feet. This is pasted from a post from jock1971 in his threads of some of his collection.

[TheGentlemanWake]

Seeing the exacting nature of Jackson Robinson's artwork over the many projects over the years leads me to believe with NO DOUBT that the choice to make the Tigers have smallish legs was a design choice made very consciously and purposefully.

[montenzi]

I've also had deck artists tell me it's actually cheaper to ship 1000's of decks from China to California than it is to ship the same amount of decks domestically from Kentucky to California. Apparently it's dirt cheap to ship goods by boat from China to the US, you just have to wait an additional month.

Fedex shipping from USPCC to Gamblers / Murphys is free. Designers use Asian printers to have more flexibility to add premium features (foil, embossing, better boxes, perfect registration) but not to save $$$. It's impossible to beat base printing costs plus shipping. And now with Clove St Press or even Gamblers you can produce even better quality boxes with an excellent USPCC stock and take no risks. So I have no ideas why to print in Asia in 2018. One exception - printing 500 decks in Asia is still a good option.

[Eric Lee]

The deck below (Old Frizzle I think) and others remind me of the deck design that Jackson Robinson seems to be going for. Note the Jack of Spades spindly feet. This is pasted from a post from jock1971 in his threads of some of his collection.

To add to this, check out this great article on the development of court cards over the centuries.
http://www.wopc.co.uk/blogs/kenlodge/pl ... ir-history" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You can see how JR is paying tribute to these with the aged 1 way courts in the LE. I do admit I was gushing a little too much in my earlier post as the standard eds aren't really worth shouting about, only the LE. As I am fascinated by the history and development of the playing cards, I really admired the effort he put in to make sure the decks are from the same era as the matchbox tribute.

After reading the site, I realize the small indices were part of the Morgan 101 Tigers. So Mike was right. This is a tribute to the 101 Tigers as much as to the matchboxes.

[Eric Lee]

I find the creativity of the theme and incorporation of design to be one of the best I've seen on KS recently.

Guy... it's a tiger.

Yeah, I was gushing a little to much. Then again, I may be overly influenced by that fact that Tigers are my country's official mascot and on the coat of arms.

It beats his Maduro deck easily.

I could not disagree more.

Coming as a history lover, (I actually bought historical reproductions of the various century playing cards) I like it more than the Maduros in terms of the effort taken to ensure the decks reflected the era of the matchboxes. Of course I now think he basically reproduced the Morgan 101 Tigers, but probably didn't admit it to escape copyright issues.

[Räpylätassu]

I find the creativity of the theme and incorporation of design to be one of the best I've seen on KS recently.

Guy... it's a tiger.
Yeah, I was gushing a little to much. Then again, I may be overly influenced by that fact that Tigers are my country's official mascot and on the coat of arms.

It beats his Maduro deck easily.

I could not disagree more.

Coming as a history lover, (I actually bought historical reproductions of the various century playing cards) I like it more than the Maduros in terms of the effort taken to ensure the decks reflected the era of the matchboxes. Of course I now think he basically reproduced the Morgan 101 Tigers, but probably didn't admit it to escape copyright issues.

What the...? You always argue against yourself and your previous messages?

[sinjin7]

Here is a picture of the actual vintage Russell & Morgan Co. Tigers 101 deck:

You can see, it's very similar to the pics Bradius posted. As I mentioned in a previous post, I know Jackson is adapting his courts to this vintage version. The Kings and Jacks in the original vintage Tigers 101 deck had squat legs, but they're thicker and seem to be better proportioned than the skinnier legs of the tigers in Jackson's courts. It's a small detail, but in my eyes it throws off the proportions a bit, and I know others will disagree and love Jackson's tiger courts just fine. I also agree with Pierre's assessment that the tiger heads seem pasted on the bodies in an odd way. For me, the best deck would have the courts of his standard edition with the full-bleed backs of the "limited" edition.

[MagikFingerz]

What the...? You always argue against yourself and your previous messages?

He fudged the quotes.

[Räpylätassu]

No Tom, that's what I thought too but "it beats his Maduro deck easily" is literally from a previous comment he himself made and then disagrees with that statement.

It's too hot to sleep in here during the night right now, so I didn't so maybe I'm missing something.

[MagikFingerz]

No Tom, that's what I thought too but "it beats his Maduro deck easily" is literally from a previous comment he himself made and then disagrees with that statement.

It's too hot to sleep in here during the night right now, so I didn't so maybe I'm missing something.

"I could not disagree more" was vasta's response to that comment.

EDIT: Fixed the quotes so it makes sense

[Eric Lee]

No Tom, that's what I thought too but "it beats his Maduro deck easily" is literally from a previous comment he himself made and then disagrees with that statement.

It's too hot to sleep in here during the night right now, so I didn't so maybe I'm missing something.

"I could not disagree more" was vasta's response to that comment.

EDIT: Fixed the quotes so it makes sense

Thank you! Didn't want to appear like I've got multiple personality disorder. Still getting the hang of the full features of this forum.

[theCapraAegagrus]

LOL @ the misquotes.

Also, tigers are awesome:



Have you ever seen a TOYGER?! Even better:



Here is a Black Footed cat, just because:

[Eric Lee]

[wingedpotato]

After much back and forth, I gave up my 1+1 pledge because I just couldn't justify the price. I'd still love to acquire the display deck for the limited, though. Anyone willing/able to grab an extra for me during pledge manager time?

[ICantShuffle]

wingedpotato,

Depends on if there's a limit to the number of display decks, but if they're only $8 per his other display decks I will probably grab extras.

[TheGentlemanWake]

After much back and forth, I gave up my 1+1 pledge because I just couldn't justify the price. I'd still love to acquire the display deck for the limited, though. Anyone willing/able to grab an extra for me during pledge manager time?

Looks like someone snatched that up pretty quickly. It's gone now.

[hawk199]

wingedpotato,

Depends on if there's a limit to the number of display decks, but if they're only $8 per his other display decks I will probably grab extras.

Got a pm from jackson stating no limit

K,

During the backerkit period in a few weeks, you will be able to add on as
many Display decks as you would like.

J

Only according to the update which require backer to have back LE tier

They will ONLY be available and visible to add (within Backerkit) to those backers pledging for one of the tiers that include an LTD edition.