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Lotrek loves us, but he is not doing fulfillment for others

Sorry, but when I saw that I starting hearing the Beatles' song "Can't by me love".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srwxJUXPHvE

Hey guys! Sorry I haven’t been on sooner. A deluge of messages to run through AND a school camp. In my sleeping bag at the moment, not the best timing.. Thank you so much for your support on this one. To be honest the last week I’ve been pulling some very long hours preparing so really happy with the first day. I’m really looking forward to production with Lotrek. I’m a sucker for high quality but there isn’t a lot of room to play with the likes of USPCC which is understandable. Having access to a high quality range of materials and Lotrek’s experience is pretty exciting. Still a long way to go and a few things bouncing around but happy to hear thoughts as we progress. Awesomeness

RickDavidson wrote:Hey guys! Sorry I haven’t been on sooner. A deluge of messages to run through AND a school camp. In my sleeping bag at the moment, not the best timing..

Does... does grad school do school camps? If I find out you're only in high school, I'm going to feel very insecure about what I've done with my life....

Oh haha no you’re off the hook, I’m on camp with my kids Have quite a few years of design angst behind me. Never stop learning

Signature edition?

KT52 wrote:Signature edition?

Yes, but it is not yet available, or even specifics announced yet.

I expect Rick will be able to make concrete plans for the Signature Edition decks soin, but I don't know exactly how soon - yet.

Looking forward to the signature decks

Cbkimble wrote:Looking forward to the signature decks

For certain! Now, this is an early prototype for Rick's ultra limited Signature Edition decks, and he will be providing a better look along with pricing here in the next few days, but I wanted to show this only on UC:
This one is the Viridi / UC green version, but there will be 60 of them along with 60 Aurum / gold decks.

Specifics including price will be in the next project update, and they will be available Saturday at 3PM.

.... happy to see more of these !
Yumm-O ....

Mike Ratledge wrote:

Cbkimble wrote:Looking forward to the signature decks

For certain! Now, this is an early prototype for Rick's ultra limited Signature Edition decks, and he will be providing a better look along with pricing here in the next few days, but I wanted to show this only on UC:

De-Novo-SE-promo1.jpg

This one is the Viridi / UC green version, but there will be 60 of them along with 60 Aurum / gold decks.

Specifics including price will be in the next project update, and they will be available Saturday at 3PM.

Nice looking but I think the xxx/xxx numbering printed on the tuck is ok but far too big.

I don't know what it is about Rick's decks and Kickstarter. With every deck he's put out, I think this deck should go sky high on Kickstarter. But instead they just go a little over the funding goal. I just don't get it. With his first deck, Origins, I had doubts whether it would even fund at all, and then it goes on to win Deck of the Year! All of Rick's decks are some of my favorite decks in my collection, and I have no doubt DeNovo will be as well. Hopefully the Signature Edition will give a huge boost to the campaign.

Agreed. It’s a strange think Kickstarter. Look at Alex Chins latest offering. What an astronomical number he raised. I do think having more options and unique and more expensive option for decks (white label with gilding and black label etc) obviously goes a long way toward increasing the funding. In that way I’m sure the signature edition will help. But I know it’s extremely limited so. I’m hoping I get some myself.


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If the limited decks sell for $50 each (I think that was the price last year), then it will add $6,000 to the campaign total if all 120 limited decks sell out. It will help the total some, but not a huge amount because only 120 are offered. But, that limited number makes them a more exclusive benefit.

It can be an odd thing that a more common deck can sell for much more than really limited issues.

I do feel that 60 of each deck is a bit on the low side. I wouldn't be adverse to there being 200 of each. But I'm not a greedy... let those who have the funds get in on it.

Bradius wrote:If the limited decks sell for $50 each (I think that was the price last year), then it will add $6,000 to the campaign total if all 120 limited decks sell out. It will help the total some, but not a huge amount because only 120 are offered. But, that limited number makes them a more exclusive benefit.

It can be an odd thing that a more common deck can sell for much more than really limited issues.

In addition to the $6000.00 boost to Rick's total funding, I think the limited decks bring more awareness to the campaign, and more people seeing the campaign will lead to more people buying the standard decks as well. I think the numbers are limited to 120 decks because its so labor-intensive to produce the Signature edition tuck boxes.

You are absolutely correct sinjin7!

In this way I don't understand the withholding of the signature edition from the begining. Can some one shed light on this? Seems to me it behooves Rick to post it from the get go as it will seem like more money came in on day one and the fans (likely everyone who when in day one) would prob buy the standards too.

Releasing a limited item midway or at the end gives a campaign a final boost. Lotrek often does a signature deck in the last 24 hours.

Believe me I see that it could most definitely provide a boost but I think the other aspect is actual MORE helpful--rather than doing it at the end, do it at the begining. I think Alex Chin does that no? Which is why his project was funded in three hours and ultimately I think that paved the way for his record fundraising this year so far.

My point is this. Put your HIGH price items up front. Most hardcore fans and day one backers are going to buy the standard stuff too, so you get a larger backing day one... this translates into a project that at first glance on the browser page looks to be WELL on the way to funding with 30 days to go. I think the longer the funding bar the more likely you are to pull in stragglers or convince people on the fence to get involved. If then at the end you want to throw in a little something extra (a dealer coin, a black LE deck, or something else) to get that final boost you talk about then great. Fact is people are attracted to success. They like to see projects with a lot of funding and backers as it promotes the crowd mentality that the creator is reputable, reliable and that the project is popular.

TheGentlemanWake wrote:Believe me I see that it could most definitely provide a boost but I think the other aspect is actual MORE helpful--rather than doing it at the end, do it at the begining. I think Alex Chin does that no? Which is why his project was funded in three hours and ultimately I think that paved the way for his record fundraising this year so far.

My point is this. Put your HIGH price items up front. Most hardcore fans and day one backers are going to buy the standard stuff too, so you get a larger backing day one... this translates into a project that at first glance on the browser page looks to be WELL on the way to funding with 30 days to go. I think the longer the funding bar the more likely you are to pull in stragglers or convince people on the fence to get involved. If then at the end you want to throw in a little something extra (a dealer coin, a black LE deck, or something else) to get that final boost you talk about then great. Fact is people are attracted to success. They like to see projects with a lot of funding and backers as it promotes the crowd mentality that the creator is reputable, reliable and that the project is popular.

While you may be right the fact remains that very few playing card KS projects have ever done this. A precedence of sorts has been set for almost 10 years now. I don't know if some projects have to do this, I think they just choose to for some reason.

TheGentlemanWake wrote:In this way I don't understand the withholding of the signature edition from the begining. Can some one shed light on this? Seems to me it behooves Rick to post it from the get go as it will seem like more money came in on day one and the fans (likely everyone who when in day one) would prob buy the standards too.

You would wanna make sure the deck is funded. While the deck inside is the same as the standard, in most cases, the special edition tuck(s) have extra costs to make.

I get that, but I think its better to be aggressive in my opinion. That's just me. I would rather come out swinging and attract big hitters rather than hold something in reserve for later. Truth is I think the majority of the projects that fail are one deck projects. At the end of the day you don't incentivize people to pledge more with out options and variations. Look at the apothecary decks. Alex Chin has hit a homerun by having so many different and expensive options. The collector will end up spending a lot more because he'll want one of each at least.

On the other hand, all those cases and gilding isn’t cheap to produce.

TheGentlemanWake wrote:Alex Chin has hit a homerun by having so many different and expensive options. The collector will end up spending a lot more because he'll want one of each at least.

Guilty. Yes I pledged for the 2 cabinets [again] but I gotta say, Alex's decks retain their value pretty well. If not increase their value over time. If I ever come to selling my collection, Alex's decks will be among the first I put out there. I've had a few inquiries on 8 decks of his that I own [as a set, now OoP]. I was shocked when the guy tantamount threw his wallet at me.

Really? THAT much for 8 decks of cards?

But getting back on topic: I stuffed my dates up, my quarterly bonus isn't coming this week. Dropped another pledge to make sure I have the cash for these, with an SE.

portcullis wrote:

TheGentlemanWake wrote:Alex Chin has hit a homerun by having so many different and expensive options. The collector will end up spending a lot more because he'll want one of each at least.

Guilty. Yes I pledged for the 2 cabinets [again] but I gotta say, Alex's decks retain their value pretty well. If not increase their value over time. If I ever come to selling my collection, Alex's decks will be among the first I put out there. I've had a few inquiries on 8 decks of his that I own [as a set, now OoP]. I was shocked when the guy tantamount threw his wallet at me.

Really? THAT much for 8 decks of cards?

But getting back on topic: I stuffed my dates up, my quarterly bonus isn't coming this week. Dropped another pledge to make sure I have the cash for these, with an SE.

Me too. The thing about Chin's projects are that he doesn't produce just beautiful cards, or just beautiful displays*, but he does BOTH. That's what makes his stuff so valuable. I have all of his legacy sets so far. Thankful he made the Magna Carta mural box available during the post-Kickstarter pre-sale, otherwise I'd be throwing my wallet at someone trying to find one...

*I think we've all bought a deck or two just because of the tuck or box set display.

This campaign is coming along nicely.

Yeah I was showing a fellow collector photos of my collection at a fair. And yes, I will let you know it was the Magna Carta set with gold in box and 2 silver in carat. Let's just his offer was about 7x what I paid. I was shocked further that same afternoon when a retailer had the 4 deck set on sale for $200 [which yes, was a bit more than I paid for the 8 after shipping]

Just wanted to publish a reminder that the Signature Edition AKA Ultra Limited Edition decks will be available tomorrow at noon EST / NYC (Saturday).

Rick has not officially stated yet, but we will likely be offering them with custom Carat Card Cases.

The price last year was about $65 as I recall, adding $8-$10 for the CCC gets to $75 and remember that the US dollar is worth about $1.35 New Zealand, so expressed in NZD it is actually slightly more than $100 (NZD, roughly $75 US). If you want it without the CCC, you can, and I suspect that they will be listed both ways.

Remember that you simply increase the pledge by the amount for one or two of the Signature decks.

Now, we have pretty much decided to not limit them to 60+60 so there is no need to worry about them selling out. Maybe 100+100 is the reasonable limit for what Rick can do, but I think that gives us plenty to go around.

Mike Ratledge wrote:The price last year was about $65 as I recall,

Last years Avant-Garde LE decks were actually $50.00/each already in a carat case and as I recall some backers of the LE decks we're a little disappointed (including myself) with how the renderings images we're promoted to us on KS to how the actual final product came out. Color wise, they are worlds apart.



Here are the samples/renderings provided last year to the actual decks in case anyone was wondering.

Black & Green Renderings Actual Photo's
Kinda hard to drop $65/deck after last years disappointment.

This is one of the downsides to getting decks on KS, the final product may not match the renderings. In this case, all the white lines on the LE tuck box should've been gray on the black tuck and light blue on the blue tuck, plus the lines should've been thinner to let the background color be more prominent.

This is a completely different deck with a different design, and probably with a very different construction of the tucks, so I don't know if you can equate last year's disappointment with the LE decks with how this year's Signature decks will turn out. But nonetheless, point well taken on "buyer beware", that should always be the case on KS decks.

Cardians wrote:

Mike Ratledge wrote:The price last year was about $65 as I recall,

Last years Avant-Garde LE decks were actually $50.00/each already in a carat case and as I recall some backers of the LE decks we're a little disappointed (including myself) with how the renderings images we're promoted to us on KS to how the actual final product came out. Color wise, they are worlds apart.



Here are the samples/renderings provided last year to the actual decks in case anyone was wondering.

Black & Green Renderings

Black Avant-Garde.jpg

Blue.jpg

Actual Photo's

FullSizeRender.jpg

FullSizeRender_1.jpg

Kinda hard to drop $65/deck after last years disappointment.

First time I'd seen these. Kinda makes me glad I could only afford the pleb version.

I don't wanna pre-empt Rick here, but the SE on his last project did come in CCC. Nice touch it was too.