UnitedCardists.com - The forum for Cardistry, Magic, Custom Decks and All Things Playing Cards.

Received my refund as of August 28th. He kept his word, and that matters a lot.

Since he refunded me through Kickstarter, KS no longer considers me a backer, so I can't post in the comments there that my refund was received. Nevertheless, my refund was received.

Wow. Glad I didn't fulfill my pledge for this project (not proud of it; was a money-available to me type thing).

Did anyone here receive/buy these. According to his KS page the project has been fulfilled and many are extremely impressed with the final outcome. I'd love to see some members pics.

They are pretty cool and handle reasonably well.

Damn those are nice! Still pissed I couldn't get lame paper sleeve "tuck".

RichK wrote:Damn those are nice! Still pissed I couldn't get lame paper sleeve "tuck".

+1

I backed that project for 3 'Traditional Tuck' decks, but they weren't able to make it so i got a refund. If they decide to produce them with 'Traditional Tuck' i'll get them for sure.

I was also disappointed when the traditional tucks were not possible to make.

I noticed this on Instagram in the comments for a recent clip displaying the VXD cards. I wonder what Felipe will offer in this upcoming campaign. I hope for traditional tucks but if not I guess I’ll settle for the aluminum case.

Fingers crossed for traditional tucks!

vasta41 wrote:Fingers crossed for traditional tucks!

Yes but they said it was too hard/expensive to holo foil both sides. I fear only one side will have holo foil.

Hello again

Hope all well with members here.

Yes, we are soon to launch a V2 of our new playing card type, now christened 'Diffractor' playing cards (currently making it's way through trademarking at the USPTO). Looking at either 1st May for one month or 1st June for one month....can't say for sure yet due to multiple design things ongoing and arrangements with our factories etc.

I can say this though:

1) Traditional tucks included
2) Transparent holographic overlays both sides
3) Launching in the Design & Tech section of KS (due to the invention / patent granted etc)
4) Actually pursuing a multi-media marketing plan this time - we did zero marketing last time (apart from the one thread here)

Will keep you all informed here and may have some images to share prior to launch.

Cheers

That's really good news!

So excited!

Very excited for round 2! Can’t wait!

Yeah well last I checked there was supposed to be traditional tucks last time as well and we got screwed on that so you have lost my support. You could have simply just given us the deck with the metal case so that we got something, but instead we were left with absolutely nothing but a refund!

And before anyone makes the argument that other backers were paying more money for the metal cases, which is true, they weren't the ones getting shafted by the creator and missing out on the deck. Since we weren't getting what we pledged for we should have gotten the alternative metal case instead. I just think it was horribly handled.

jerichoholic wrote:Yeah well last I checked there was supposed to be traditional tucks last time as well and we got screwed on that so you have lost my support. You could have simply just given us the deck with the metal case so that we got something, but instead we were left with absolutely nothing but a refund!

And before anyone makes the argument that other backers were paying more money for the metal cases, which is true, they weren't the ones getting shafted by the creator and missing out on the deck. Since we weren't getting what we pledged for we should have gotten the alternative metal case instead. I just think it was horribly handled.

No. This isn't how economics works. This sense of entitlement is garbage. The creator doesn't owe you anything if s/he provided you with a full-refund. You should consider yourself lucky that the creator actually did refund the unfulfilled backers considering how often people are mass-scammed on crowdfunding platforms.

VXD did the 'right' thing. They don't owe you more than what you expected. It's too bad that you received less (nothing), but they didn't take your money and run. Get over yourself already.

They are certainly unique and rare, but this is more than I initially expected on the aftermarket...am I missing something? I don't use eBay.

Just to note anyone can list anything at any price on ebay, only sold listings should be considered when trying to figure out the actual amount something is selling for. Not to say that this deck wont sell at this price, just a general point about trying to figure out the value of something through ebay.

Yeah JuFIN I know, in my vague knowledge of the game there on eBay.

Then this is what really got me thinking....

Believe me, this is no plug by me for my product. I live in the UK and Germany and do not sell from the US or have any friends there atm doing that sort of thing for me. It just came up today when I searched VXD / Vertex Deck on google ...

That will certainly make the two units I'm giving away to the UC 2017 Awards (as well as the ones owned by the previous VXD backers) a super-charge anyway, it looks like. I'm obviously just very interested to see how values in the aftermarket pan out, with it being the labour of my life for the last 8 years straight.

Speaking of the Awards prize units - when and where are we due to send these units, can anyone tell me? To UC site admin or direct to whoever wins them?

The when is my concern really, as I will only be able to send them out mid-May, once another round of QC is done in Germany. I hope that will not be an issue. I can guarantee they will arrive to whoever is due them, late May.

Regards

Another thing I've been meaning to ask here....to whom it may concern (mods / admin?).....now that we have delivered our first edition some months ago, can we be made 'Verified designer' please on UC?

Thanks and regards

VXD wrote:Another thing I've been meaning to ask here....to whom it may concern (mods / admin?).....now that we have delivered our first edition some months ago, can we be made 'Verified designer' please on UC?

Absolutely. That's a Mike R. thing (I don't have the necessary permissions to do that), but when he sees this, he'll take care of it.

A little bit of a background on the VXD decks sold on eBay. Initially the sale price was just shy of $800. In the listing though, there was mention of another deck (the black version) also being available. Also the Ace was not to be included.

Being new to UC, I missed out on the KS campaign completely and after I became a member and came across the post here on these deck, I really felt I missed out on something special. I really like the designers that take something as simple as a deck of cards and push the limits of what they can do with them. Anyway, when these came up for sale, I reached out to the seller and said I wanted all three decks and the Ace. We agreed on a new price and he updated the listing. As to the cost, most people might not be willing to pay quite that much, but when I want something, I'm pretty good at convincing myself it's worth whatever the asking price is. In other words, it was worth that price to me to add these to my collection. I've paid more for less, and in other cases I've paid less for more. At the end of the day, I have them and I'm happy.

However, I hope not to miss out on the next release.... When will that be by the way?

Spectre

I appreciate your words regarding our deck, the invention and pushing the limits of what is possible.

Thanks for sharing your background context and although I like to keep certain things generally very close to my chest and feel it is valuable to do so, often, especially with a newly released product (it retains somewhat of an air of mystery ), I feel I can share some of our background to the sale and to your #047/299....

As you all know, we do not use any of the playing card factories known to the community. There is one simple way I have come to explain the reason for this, to the people who inquire.

Playing card factories make playing cards. Until now, there has been no need for any of them to invest in a module or fully separate machine that can also lay down transparent holographics, in volume and at the registration (precision of alignment) required for our process. On the other hand very high-end print-finishers make labels for expensive champagne bottles, they make secure ID cards and even the passports we treasure personally so much. So when people ask why we have to produce in Germany at a secretive and hence extremely expensive facility, I simply explain: Playing card factories make playing cards, print-finishers...print-finish. There is no overlap in what either of them do. Until now.

I actually, believe it or not, did not even follow what was happening in the playing card market at all until late 2016 / early 2017, when I started googling the custom playing card market and found UC. I was at this point already 6-7 years into the design and development mission for Diffractors. Then I saw that the playing card industry was on the cusp of it's own revolution, which un-coincidentally was going to come about alongside a (digital) revolution in the general printing and wider manufacturing world. We are right now in the transition period. Factories (some ahead of others of course) are, or are about to, replace or certainly compliment their in-line, mechanical modules and machines with new digital machines....with all kinds of new capabilities and precisions and speeds available. And of course - the ability to PERSONALISE on super short runs (as little as one unit). It is quite an exciting time and will go down in the the printing and manufacturing history books as the transition into the digital age of printing. Look at Nike ID for instance, making personalised Nike trainers for individuals that can afford it and have to have it. I read a lot about Nike ID...as VXD is going down that route currently, as a side-strategy. That will be quite normal in 10-20 years time from now - we will all be wearing one-off clothes, tailored, printed and customised just for us, at affordable prices (as the availability grows). It is inevitable.

I digress, but I'm excited. I'm excited to be part of this new age. I feel blessed that I thought of the Diffractor playing cards concept back in 2009 and followed it through over the last 8-9 years and that it has got me here now, riding the digital wave sweeping across the industry. You need a digital surfboard btw, for digital waves

Now coming back to your #047 decks and the rest of the 71 matching-numbered combo units that have gone out to people around the world....

I've been a professional structural engineer for 18 years before this.... I have designed Highway and Railway bridges and repairs for them (for the British government) for that whole time.....so believe me when I say....I know my technical stuff and as an engineer you have to be passionate about solving problems. Well I can tell you that VXD has really tested my patience! The print-finishing factory we use in Germany has never made playing cards before, as noted already... so of course I expected problems. I researched the playing card production process myself over many years and wrote all the specifications and was there at every step to help develop the process. To be fair to them (and I've been told as much by one or two of the playing card manufacturers already), they have done an amazing job. Germans are known for their innovations and machine precision etc of course, but this was a test for sure. I can say that it took me 90 hours of QC to check just those 71 units + an additional 40 'Black' decks which were delivered. Being an engineer myself and with this being my baby, I am extremely picky too with precision and technical quality. I rejected the first full run, rightly I may add, but it cost the two German factories about 40.000 Euro to redo the whole 1100 unit run (299 red, 299 blue, 499 black) and a lot of additional time. I also personally sacrificed all the materials and we lost a lot of money in the company at this stage and A LOT of time in the process too. To get those units out to backers in November, I missed flights, lost a lot of sleep and left our relationship with our factories hanging by a thread. That saga goes on still.

As we are dealing with (half-invisible) transparent holographics, the QC involved sitting at a big table, blocking all daylight out of the room, with one bright light to carefully go over every card and sift out the random errors in registration. On top of that - I will not get started on the Ace of Spades, but suffice to say....those holographic signatures caused one hell of a bust-up. This is on top of all the usual concerns, such as normal print errors, cutting and borders, sorting and ordering the cards into full ordered decks etc etc. A further partial QC session happens in May in Germany and I honestly don't know how many full decks we will get in the end after all the QC sessions finish by the end of 2018.

Of course, I've not even spoken about the coating process we developed and could also have patented (I nearly pursued that) and the bespoke metal cases which I designed and have their own story as long as this one. I can tell those stories another time maybe.

To add to the background picture Spectre, I can say this to you (and if anyone doesn't believe me, as it's a contentious and seemingly far-fetched one to grasp, well it will come to light maybe soon)....of the ones QC'd, the following 3 Stars & Stripes units are, through one extremely valuable connection, going directly into the hands of the following (somewhat well-known) people:

JayZ - #023
Guy Laliberte (founder of Cirque du Soleil) - #052
Dynamo - #014

I have worn my keyboard down now, but I hope that adds a little to your feeling of the #047 you have just bought on eBay. I will PM you today or tomorrow as I have a little something that may put the icing on the cake for your purchase, seeing as it cost you that much more to get your hands on.

Kind regards

For some small minds ....
The bigger picture.
Bridges.Design.MoreDesign.Construction.Innovation.Input.Collaboration.Duress.Production.Sweat.More Sweat.Stress.PossibleSuccess.
There is a place for Censorship.
It begins at home.
Self Censorship.
Self Reflection.
Self Criticism.
Self Awareness.
Self Responsibility.
Miss any of these, Start Again.
Some here would not get through the first couple of sentences from the above before their eyes glaze over, yet still feel qualified to whine and criticise.
Get over yourselves.
That this need be said (in the context of this thread) proves that lazy thinking is never helpful, on here, or (especially) at home.
I think.

Thanks for some of the background on the delelopment and effort put into this deck. I am really impressed at how you have applied new manufacturing technology to playing cards. I wished I had paid attention to your first Kickstarter. I will definitely be anticipating your next Kickstarter!

Thanks Bradius, there are details of V2 coming very soon. We will tend to post first to Instagram and Facebook and here as well where possible for each update re the next launch....that only falls down here when it's a video post with accompanying details.

Bruno...what happened there?! There was nothing negative said so nothing to defend on my behalf. I appreciate support always, but let's keep things positive (when they are) eh.

Regards

Bradius wrote:Thanks for some of the background on the delelopment and effort put into this deck. I am really impressed at how you have applied new manufacturing technology to playing cards. I wished I had paid attention to your first Kickstarter. I will definitely be anticipating your next Kickstarter!

I cannot wait to own a deck of these cards in a traditional tuck. In fact, I can't believe I'm saying this but I might buy two decks- one for the collection and one to actually open

vasta41 wrote:

Bradius wrote:Thanks for some of the background on the delelopment and effort put into this deck. I am really impressed at how you have applied new manufacturing technology to playing cards. I wished I had paid attention to your first Kickstarter. I will definitely be anticipating your next Kickstarter!

I cannot wait to own a deck of these cards in a traditional tuck. In fact, I can't believe I'm saying this but I might buy two decks- one for the collection and one to actually open

Welcome to the dark side. We also have cookies!

rousselle wrote:

vasta41 wrote:

Bradius wrote:Thanks for some of the background on the delelopment and effort put into this deck. I am really impressed at how you have applied new manufacturing technology to playing cards. I wished I had paid attention to your first Kickstarter. I will definitely be anticipating your next Kickstarter!

I cannot wait to own a deck of these cards in a traditional tuck. In fact, I can't believe I'm saying this but I might buy two decks- one for the collection and one to actually open

Welcome to the dark side. We also have cookies!

Oh I won't be making it a habit. I just figured out of all of the 900+ decks I own, if I were to open just one to see its features, it would be this.

VXD wrote:Bruno...what happened there?!

No one ever knows...