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Pablo yes I just checked it is 1000... no wonder they lasted only a few minutes

The print runs on all of Blaine's foiled decks have to be very high for him to be able to sell them at under $15 per deck. I appreciate that Blaine does that so everyone who wants a deck can get one. E or T11 would print out 5000 decks and then claim they were extremely limited and trickle them out in short windows or during holiday promotions at ridiculous prices or only if you buy $150.00 worth of stuff to get 1 deck for "free". I like Blaine's sales model much better. I always pick up a brick of every foiled release he's done and then use them to my heart's content without worrying if these are "limited" or if I can't get a hold of any more. Blaine + Stutzman + foil is a hard combo to resist.

I was a bit put off by the cello disclaimer, but I'm going to guess the vast majority of decks will be just fine. I open my decks so the cello isn't any concern for me. I'm sure there will be at least one or two pristine decks (if not more) in my bricks so those will be for the collection and the rest will lose the cello anyways.

Once again, the black tuck with the silver gator on front is the black gatorbacks. People on ebay are saying that they're silverbacks or metallic silver, misleading people.

Here is a better picture of the Rose Gold Gatorbacks. I took it under a less yellow light and have another deck with true gold foil next to it for comparison.

Bikefanatic wrote:Once again, the black tuck with the silver gator on front is the black gatorbacks. People on ebay are saying that they're silverbacks or metallic silver, misleading people.

People are clueless on ebay You should see how many Black Artisans are being sold as rare gold Artisans. I take fun in messaging them and telling them how clueless they are

scottbre wrote:Here is a better picture of the Rose Gold Gatorbacks. I took it under a less yellow light and have another deck with true gold foil next to it for comparison.

Thanks for sharing.

No physical damage with my decks, just the minor thing of the opening being on the front of the tucks. I like the silver better, the rose gold looks more of a bronze color.

I think the rose gold is a bit coppery, which I like. I don't care for the tuck being reversed and the front being printed physically on the back side of the tuck. The metallic rose gold ink on the cards is pretty nice. It is closer to what I think of for rose gold.

Sent from my S10+ using Tapatalk

Here is a group photo of the actual cards for better comparison of the colors. From Left to Right: Silver Gatorback, Rose Gold Gatorback, Gold Gatorback, and I threw in a Gold Split Spades on the far right. There's definitely a difference between the rose gold and regular golds, but to me Blaine could've easily called these the Copper Gatorbacks.

The most significant thing Blaine did with the rose gold and silver versions is to enlarge the image on the backs, resulting in better resolution of the fine design details and thinner borders to accommodate the larger design. I am posting a close up of the rose gold and regular gold backs and you can see Blaine also inverted some areas of the design so you have more negative space on the rose gold version, which further helps enhance the intricate detail on the backs.

Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to mention something about the cellophane disclaimer. I initially thought the problem Blaine was talking about was that the cello would be wrapped too tight and thus warp some of the tucks or cause some other minor cosmetic injury to the tuck box. None of the 24 decks I receive had any issues. If anything, it seems some of the cello was a bit loose, but nothing to rise to the degree of being a problem. Maybe I got lucky, but thankfully no issues with my 2 bricks.

sinjin7 wrote:Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to mention something about the cellophane disclaimer. I initially thought the problem Blaine was talking about was that the cello would be wrapped too tight and thus warp some of the tucks or cause some other minor cosmetic injury to the tuck box. None of the 24 decks I receive had any issues. If anything, it seems some of the cello was a bit loose, but nothing to rise to the degree of being a problem. Maybe I got lucky, but thankfully no issues with my 2 bricks.

Same thing I saw, seemed like if anything the cellophane was loose on the deck.

sinjin7 wrote:Here is a group photo of the actual cards for better comparison of the colors. From Left to Right: Silver Gatorback, Rose Gold Gatorback, Gold Gatorback, and I threw in a Gold Split Spades on the far right.

Thanks for the comparison photos. Looks like I have to get those Copper Gatorbacks

EDIT: Move on nothing to see here, just your regular USPCC deck...

I mean, "rose gold" is gold+copper...

Harvonsgard wrote: EDIT: Move on nothing to see here, just your regular USPCC deck...

-snip-

Horrendous

PrincessTrouble wrote:

Harvonsgard wrote: EDIT: Move on nothing to see here, just your regular USPCC deck...

-snip-

Horrendous

Worst I've seen

How do we know that this isn't just the work of a hapless, rogue USPCC assembly-line employee who keeps feeding the paper crooked because he's perpetually recovering from the night before?

vasta41 wrote:How do we know that this isn't just the work of a hapless, rogue USPCC assembly-line employee who keeps feeding the paper crooked because he's perpetually recovering from the night before?

Can't speak for the atrocious one above, but when you constantly have different people showing the registration issues of USPCC on decks that were called "premium," supposedly you would start asking what has gone wrong with USPCC standard. Just natural instinct


(this one I personally saw in a story from an IG friend)








(by @macstrat himself, the deck scanner)

That's why I only agree with USPCC cards being good for handling and feel, never for the printing quality. For printing precision, there are far more printers out there that are doing a better job than USPCC.

vasta41 wrote:How do we know that this isn't just the work of a hapless, rogue USPCC assembly-line employee who keeps feeding the paper crooked because he's perpetually recovering from the night before?

Loved that. In all seriousness though. Everyone has made peace with the acknowledgement that USPCC slipped into the B-tier of printers.
Which sucks for me personally since Bicycle retail stock is my favorite stock and I still love them. But I'm more and more driven towards other printers. Let's just hope they get their shit together. I don't see problems like that (frequence and severety of f**'d up borders) with older USPCC decks, so I'm still not convinced that it is due to their production line and/or a problem that can't be fixed by applying a quality standard.

theCapraAegagrus wrote:I mean, "rose gold" is gold+copper...

gold + copper + silver or palladium to be precise. Gold + copper = red gold.

Harvonsgard wrote:

theCapraAegagrus wrote:I mean, "rose gold" is gold+copper...

gold + copper + silver or palladium to be precise. Gold + copper = red gold.

Um... Roses are red...

As someone who has/does work in/with metallurgy, I have never heard "red gold".

Gold+copper is rose gold. Silver doesn't impact the color.

theCapraAegagrus wrote:I have never heard "red gold".

...
Just to clarify a bit further, the rose in rose gold derives from rosé (colour) not from the rose (flower). And roses are indeed red, but since they come in every colour of the spectrum from white to yellow over to rose to red, not really a valid point, eh?

theCapraAegagrus wrote:Silver doesn't impact the color.

Let's just hope this is you not being serious again here; otherwise you apperantly have no clue about metallurgy or goldsmithery.

Harvonsgard wrote:

theCapraAegagrus wrote:I have never heard "red gold".

...
Just to clarify a bit further, the rose in rose gold derives from rosé (colour) not from the rose (flower). And roses are indeed red, but since they come in every colour of the spectrum from white to yellow over to rose to red, not really a valid point, eh?

theCapraAegagrus wrote:Silver doesn't impact the color.

Let's just hope this is you not being serious again here; otherwise you apperantly have no clue about metallurgy or goldsmithery.

You literally have no clue what you're talking about (again).

Rose gold, in metallurgy (MetalLuxe, not JewelryLuxe), is gold+copper. In the article you shared: "Rose gold is a gold–copper alloy..." On red-gold: "...this term is now obsolete."

*facepalm*

theCapraAegagrus wrote:

Harvonsgard wrote:

theCapraAegagrus wrote:I have never heard "red gold".

...
Just to clarify a bit further, the rose in rose gold derives from rosé (colour) not from the rose (flower). And roses are indeed red, but since they come in every colour of the spectrum from white to yellow over to rose to red, not really a valid point, eh?

theCapraAegagrus wrote:Silver doesn't impact the color.

Let's just hope this is you not being serious again here; otherwise you apperantly have no clue about metallurgy or goldsmithery.

You literally have no clue what you're talking about (again).

Rose gold, in metallurgy (MetalLuxe, not JewelryLuxe), is gold+copper. In the article you shared: "Rose gold is a gold–copper alloy..." On red-gold: "...this term is now obsolete."

*facepalm*

Looks to me like the obsolete term is "Russian gold".

Full quote: Rose gold, also known as pink gold and red gold, was popular in Russia at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and was also known as Russian gold, although this term is now obsolete.

Wikipedia wrote:18K red gold: 75% gold, 25% copper
18K rose gold: 75% gold, 22.25% copper, 2.75% silver
18K pink gold: 75% gold, 20% copper, 5% silver
12K red gold: 50% gold and 50% copper

MagikFingerz wrote:

theCapraAegagrus wrote:You literally have no clue what you're talking about (again).

Rose gold, in metallurgy (MetalLuxe, not JewelryLuxe), is gold+copper. In the article you shared: "Rose gold is a gold–copper alloy..." On red-gold: "...this term is now obsolete."

*facepalm*

Looks to me like the obsolete term is "Russian gold".

Full quote: Rose gold, also known as pink gold and red gold, was popular in Russia at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and was also known as Russian gold, although this term is now obsolete.

Wikipedia wrote:18K red gold: 75% gold, 25% copper
18K rose gold: 75% gold, 22.25% copper, 2.75% silver
18K pink gold: 75% gold, 20% copper, 5% silver
12K red gold: 50% gold and 50% copper

While you make a 'fair' point - they're actually all obsolete. Maybe this poorly-structured article was written by a boomer Russian jewelry seller.

Spreading misinformation just because you (not you, Tom) read something on the internet grinds my gears.

Harvonsgard wrote:

No one is going to argue this is extremely shitty registration. But no one posts pics of cards with perfect registration from USPCC, and if they did, this thread would grow to hundreds of pages. There are FAR more people who get decks with great registration than crap like above. The USPCC prints 100 million decks per year. To put that in perspective, since the New Year began, USPCC has printed more decks in under 30 days than EPCC, LPCC, Hanson Chien, and NPCC have printed in their entire existence combined. So yeah, sometimes shit slips by their quality control (and recently it seems more frequent), but over 99% of people who get a USPCC deck will have registration that's just fine. My deck collection is not as big as some here at UC, but I open most of my decks and so far I've not had any deck with registration that bad.

Plus, if you get a USPCC deck that does have unacceptable registration, you have remedies. If it's one of their stock brands, like say a Rider Back or Tally Ho, you can send the defective cards plus the guarantee Joker back to them to get a replacement. If it's a custom deck, most reputable companies or deck artists will work with you to get a perfect deck, stock permitting.

I got three silvers and three rose golds and they're all perfect. My only gripe is the tuck boxes. The black tucks are supposed to be made of Leather stock, and the white tucks are supposed to be on Soft Touch stock. They neither feel leathery or soft touch, but just like their previous Gatorback tucks. But damn, that metaluxe looks sexy as hell. Folled cards under $15? Yes please!

alric wrote:

Harvonsgard wrote:

No one is going to argue this is extremely shitty registration. But no one posts pics of cards with perfect registration from USPCC, and if they did, this thread would grow to hundreds of pages. There are FAR more people who get decks with great registration than crap like above. The USPCC prints 100 million decks per year. To put that in perspective, since the New Year began, USPCC has printed more decks in under 30 days than EPCC, LPCC, Hanson Chien, and NPCC have printed in their entire existence combined. So yeah, sometimes shit slips by their quality control (and recently it seems more frequent), but over 99% of people who get a USPCC deck will have registration that's just fine. My deck collection is not as big as some here at UC, but I open most of my decks and so far I've not had any deck with registration that bad.

Plus, if you get a USPCC deck that does have unacceptable registration, you have remedies. If it's one of their stock brands, like say a Rider Back or Tally Ho, you can send the defective cards plus the guarantee Joker back to them to get a replacement. If it's a custom deck, most reputable companies or deck artists will work with you to get a perfect deck, stock permitting.

I got three silvers and three rose golds and they're all perfect. My only gripe is the tuck boxes. The black tucks are supposed to be made of Leather stock, and the white tucks are supposed to be on Soft Touch stock. They neither feel leathery or soft touch, but just like their previous Gatorback tucks. But damn, that metaluxe looks sexy as hell. Folled cards under $15? Yes please!

You're not wrong.

I've seen people with complaints about EPCC decks, but I personally haven't owned a problem child from them. On the other side, I have had a few bad USPCC decks (HOTRS comes to mind).

More quantity means more opportunity for problems. I do think that USPCC needs to reign in their QC, though. They're one of the top brands and IMO they can and should do better.

sinjin7 wrote:Here is a group photo of the actual cards for better comparison of the colors. From Left to Right: Silver Gatorback, Rose Gold Gatorback, Gold Gatorback, and I threw in a Gold Split Spades on the far right. There's definitely a difference between the rose gold and regular golds, but to me Blaine could've easily called these the Copper Gatorbacks.

The most significant thing Blaine did with the rose gold and silver versions is to enlarge the image on the backs, resulting in better resolution of the fine design details and thinner borders to accommodate the larger design. I am posting a close up of the rose gold and regular gold backs and you can see Blaine also inverted some areas of the design so you have more negative space on the rose gold version, which further helps enhance the intricate detail on the backs.

@sinjin7 it says on his website that the Silver Gatorbacks feature Silver Foil & White Foil on White Soft Touch stock. What's a white foil? Could you take a closer shot if you could identify it?

@Decknowledgy - I think terms like "white foil" or "black foil" are misnomers. Foil connotes metallic reflection of light. What Blaine is calling "white foil" is actually just spot UV ink, so there are glossy design elements that contrast with the matte stock used along with the actual silver foil. You see the same thing on black tuck boxes that claim "black foil", but its usually just glossy spot UV ink that contrasts with the matte black paper stock of the tuck.

sinjin7 wrote:@Decknowledgy - I think terms like "white foil" or "black foil" are misnomers. Foil connotes metallic reflection of light. What Blaine is calling "white foil" is actually just spot UV ink, so there are glossy design elements that contrast with the matte stock used along with the actual silver foil. You see the same thing on black tuck boxes that claim "black foil", but its usually just glossy spot UV ink that contrasts with the matte black paper stock of the tuck.

@sinjin, though you may be right in most cases about black foil, I do know that Lotrek used black foil on his Macabre Black Mass tuck boxes and maybe on another deck.