Playing Card Stocks & Finishes

[mook]

Hi,

As a newcomer to this forum, I have a question.

In addition to my slowly growing 'collection' (I have exactly 5 'non-standard' decks!) I have two decks of Bicycle Standard playing cards with to practice. These were bought on ebay.co.uk (since I live in the UK)

These having become a little 'tired', I bought 4 more decks. I loved the finishes on those 2 decks, and was looking forward to receiving 4 more.

When these extra decks arrived, I was disappointed to find them to be...different.



The top decks are my original 2. Note the packaging. I presume that these have the Bicycle 'air cushioned' finish - they feel nice in the hand and have a linen feel to them. They also seem to be the same stock as my Archangels, Guardians, Dragon Backs, etc...

The bottom row represent the packaging for the 4 subsequent decks. They look to have the "linen" texture, but they feel like blocks of plastic in the hand, almost as if air-cushioned cards have been dipped in plastic. I am sure that they are official Bicycle cards

So onto my question (finally!): What 'stock' or 'finish' do these nasty bricks represent, and how can I avoid them in future?


If someone can help clear this up, I would be very much obliged!

[mook]

No-one?

[schfifty5]

Could be fakes but hard to tell from the pictures, otherwise IIRC the bottom 2 decks are older judging by the tuck, you can look at the AoS to work out the year as well; http://www.leeasher.com/playground/arti ... cards.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
They would all be Bicycle air cushioned finish, different years and batches can have different qualities, I've gotten a couple of 2014 decks that weren't cut on the edges nicely and couldn't really fan or faro but other decks are fine.
Hard to avoid but it is rare and you'll probably be alright in the future.

[volantangel]

I have had decks that came to me with almost zero fanning ability, one thing that i like to do with them is to use fanning powder, many of times they end up fanning really really well, but its not quite the same feel as an unpowdered deck, but the satisfaction is awesome to turn an unfannable deck to a fannable one =)

I see no reason that these are fakes, one thing though, the spades on your red deck is black ? Or is that a camera fault, my standards come with a blue spade.

[mook]

Thanks guys!

schfifty5, thanks for the link - very informative.

The Aces in both of my 'nice' decks carry the serial 3514-T1635H, which puts them as 2014 decks (T) or a 2006 decks (H).

The 'nasty' cards bear the serial H1625, well, all of the ones that I opened, which if real, also puts them at 2006.

I'm not sure if that helps owing to the differences in the style of serial numbers...

volantangel, thanks for the advice. I'll get some fanning powder to test the inferior cards.

Yes, the Ace on the box is blue, barely, but a almost black-blue.

On an interesting note, the boxes that the 'nasty' cards came in are basic. I'm showing my ignorance here, but if you look at the red box in the top row in the photo, those boxes have a 'flap' that runs across the Bicycle logo which makes it easier to put the cards back in their boxes (I'm assuming that this is an example of the 'tuck box' here). Suffice to say, the 'nasty' ones don't have this feature.

All of these decks were bought by friends, so I'm not sure exactly where on eBay they were bought. I guess I'll simply stick to 'reputable' dealers in future.

Thank you for the info, folks!