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

Hi Everyone,

I haven't posted here in a long time. I am primarily a magician, more so than a card collector anymore, but I have always wanted to design my own custom deck of playing cards. I had attempted a design before, but never followed through with it. It was uninspired and I was trying to fit in with trends.

I have finally designed a deck that encasplates everything I love, while at the same time producing a very usable deck of playing cards for magic, cardistry, and general game playing.

I call the deck "1919 Eclipse - Lunares." This deck is inspired by my love of space and science, as well as my love for science-fiction. I wanted to create a usable casino-style back that is still space themed without being overly obnoxious and still usable. The replicating pattern is an obvioius nod to Bee Playing Cards by USPCC.

The deck will have custom jokers and a custom Ace of Spades. The rest of the cards will be standard. As a magician this is important to me and I am personally over all of the cartoonish and personalized faces that are on every custom deck these days. I would like for this to be timeless.

The Ace of Spades features a 2D representation of a Tesseract which is as close to a visual representation of a fourth demnision as our human brains can come up with. There are small touches on the Jokers as well, which feature a single pocket watch on each.

If you aren't sure what the yaer 1919 references, do a quick google search.

I am planning on bringing this to Kickstarter this year, hopefully sooner rather than later. I am looking at USPCC or Cartamundi. Cartamundi has recently been making great strides in their playing cards and have a more consistent and strict quality control than USPCC. It will all depend on samples form them and how they feel against USPCC. I prefer USPCC greatly over EPCC or LPCC, so I am not looking at printing with either of those companies.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope all is well here!

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUgd7a- ... e=youtu.be[/youtube]

Great to see you back!

I really like the look here, standard courts notwithstanding. As long as the price isn't too exorbitant, I'll be picking up a few.

rousselle wrote:Great to see you back!

I really like the look here, standard courts notwithstanding. As long as the price isn't too exorbitant, I'll be picking up a few.

Thank you! I am really hoping to keep the prices as low as possible. I know for me that soon as I see a deck that is $14+ a deck, I pretty much pass it up right away. I think cardists look at it a little bit differently since they use one deck for a long period of time. I would prefer for this to be a usable and affordable deck. I would like to add embossing to the box, but only if it will make sense and we can hit that goal. I am hoping to keep these around $7 a pack if possible, but again it will all depend on quotes from the printing companies, which haven't reached back out to me yet... I will update this thread again once I have more info. Thanks again!

BenMorrisRains wrote:

rousselle wrote:Great to see you back!

I really like the look here, standard courts notwithstanding. As long as the price isn't too exorbitant, I'll be picking up a few.

Thank you! I am really hoping to keep the prices as low as possible. I know for me that soon as I see a deck that is $14+ a deck, I pretty much pass it up right away. I think cardists look at it a little bit differently since they use one deck for a long period of time. I would prefer for this to be a usable and affordable deck. I would like to add embossing to the box, but only if it will make sense and we can hit that goal. I am hoping to keep these around $7 a pack if possible, but again it will all depend on quotes from the printing companies, which haven't reached back out to me yet... I will update this thread again once I have more info. Thanks again!

I think silver foil on the text and "white" lines around the tuck would be nice depending how light gray you go too.

RichK wrote:

BenMorrisRains wrote:

rousselle wrote:Great to see you back!

I really like the look here, standard courts notwithstanding. As long as the price isn't too exorbitant, I'll be picking up a few.

Thank you! I am really hoping to keep the prices as low as possible. I know for me that soon as I see a deck that is $14+ a deck, I pretty much pass it up right away. I think cardists look at it a little bit differently since they use one deck for a long period of time. I would prefer for this to be a usable and affordable deck. I would like to add embossing to the box, but only if it will make sense and we can hit that goal. I am hoping to keep these around $7 a pack if possible, but again it will all depend on quotes from the printing companies, which haven't reached back out to me yet... I will update this thread again once I have more info. Thanks again!

I think silver foil on the text and "white" lines around the tuck would be nice depending how light gray you go too.

Except that he's trying to make this an affordable deck and I doubt foil would be cheap.

jerichoholic wrote:

RichK wrote:

BenMorrisRains wrote:

rousselle wrote:Great to see you back!

I really like the look here, standard courts notwithstanding. As long as the price isn't too exorbitant, I'll be picking up a few.

Thank you! I am really hoping to keep the prices as low as possible. I know for me that soon as I see a deck that is $14+ a deck, I pretty much pass it up right away. I think cardists look at it a little bit differently since they use one deck for a long period of time. I would prefer for this to be a usable and affordable deck. I would like to add embossing to the box, but only if it will make sense and we can hit that goal. I am hoping to keep these around $7 a pack if possible, but again it will all depend on quotes from the printing companies, which haven't reached back out to me yet... I will update this thread again once I have more info. Thanks again!

I think silver foil on the text and "white" lines around the tuck would be nice depending how light gray you go too.

Except that he's trying to make this an affordable deck and I doubt foil would be cheap.

I know foil won't be cheap and I appreciate his wanting to keep it a cheap deck. Maybe a stretch goal? I'm glad he has embossing as a possible stretch goal.

Hey guys,

I am going to definitely look into it all. I just can't get a response back from either USPCC or Cartamundi via Email so I will be making some phone calls soon. I also want to do another color as a stretch goal.

What else do people like best these days from Playing Card campaigns? Uncut sheets are cool, but do people really care about t-shirts, coins, mini decks, etc?

I dig coins, if they are well designed, big, and weighty.

I'm not an extras buyer, usually just the cards. I will buy a Honey Comb coin when the Backerkit comes out so a good coin will get my attention.

I'd like to see the second color deck too.

I love that the tuck looks like I can stick my finger right through the center.

The second color and stretch goal will be called 1919 Eclipse "Solis" Edition. I debated on various color ways and colors related to the sun. Yellow is just not an attractive color to me and we have a lot of red decks already. This pantone of orange is called "Sun Orange," so it is pretty fitting for the project. I think it looks great and is unique-ish.



I am still tweaking the box design and I am going to start working on a coin design soon.

I have made phone calls to USPCC, as well as sent multiple emails and still no response. I understand this is a Kickstarter campaign but what if I already had the funds ready to go? Kind of odd to not answer a potential paying customer. Cartamundi has also received multiple emails but has not responded.

I sent an email to EPCC today because of Magic Orthodoxy's review of the Brooklyn 101 playing cards. Apparently their classic finish is now softer and he said if he could print on any stock today, it would be that new stock. Perhaps their customer service will be better and get back to me sooner.

JazzVox wrote:I love that the tuck looks like I can stick my finger right through the center.

I was lmao when I read this because I was so confused but then I saw it! What a cool accidental optical illusion. Diggin it for sure.

Thanks again everyone for the constructive comments. Truly appreciated.

-Ben

I received my MPC prototype today. This is only a test to see what the back design looked like in action and I am extremely happy. To me, it carries the appeal of decks like Bee's with the repeating pattern but has elements of classic casino playing cards, with the reflective, hour-glass like shape in the center and mirrored images.

I have also received all my quotes from the USPCC (finally) and Gamblers Warehouse. I have a few more details to wrap up, but I see this going to kickstarter within a month or two.

To keep this affordable, at around $8 per deck with the 1,000 minimum, it would have to ship without embossing. Adding embossing to the tuck pushes it to about $11 per deck. Foil + Embossing of course only makes the price go up.

At this point, I am on the fence with embossing/foil. My intention was to keep the cost as low as possible. If anything, embossing will be a stretch goal and not foil. I understand this is a "designer" deck, but I would rather it be obtainable for everyone from the poor kid magician to the wealthy collector. Somewhere in between I suppose would be best.

Shipping is on par with most Kickstarter campaigns that use Gamblers Warehouse. The more you buy the more you save. One deck shipped in the US will be around $12 and international it will be around $13. One brick shipped in the US would be $100. One brick shipped internationally would be $120, add $1.60 for tracking (certain countries only). That is pretty reasonable to me.

I am super excited for the progress that I have been making and I hope this deck will become a reality.

Thank you to everyone who has shown interest so far.