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Messages - Don Boyer

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1
Did you manage to get your copy by attending Cardtopia '23?  It was an excellent convention, although perhaps a little short.


I'm eagerly awaiting the announcement of the dates and location for Cardtopia '24!  I heard that New York City is under consideration for its second such convention, but there are also people wanting to hold it in Erlanger, KY, perhaps in hopes of being able to include a factory tour.  Either way, I'm eager to go.


I managed to get a VIP ticket last year, upgraded to include a two-night hotel stay - while the rooms were small, they were well-appointed and (considering the neighborhood) a bargain for the price.  It was a pleasure not having to return home between the VIP cocktail party and the day's events, as well as the "after party" I attended.


I can't recommend it strongly enough - if you have a chance to go to Cardtopia and you enjoy all things cards, GO!  Get the best ticket you can afford - the VIP tickets weren't cheap, but so much was included, that in the end it was really a savings compared to what you'd pay on your own out of pocket.  Prepare to spend a lot - USPC and Cartamundi had some excellent and rare finds available in their merchandise shop.  I now practically have a full wardrobe of USPC/Cartamundi t-shirts!  And there were decks there that are nearly impossible to find elsewhere, some of which at very reasonable prices.


I know - I'm a little off-topic!  I will say they had copies of Flourish special edition for free, and there's a page inside for collecting autographs of your favorite presenters.  Many of the lecturers and performers were mingling with the attendees before and after their events - it was a golden opportunity, to be sure.

2
Feedback + Support / Re: Trouble Posting Pics
« on: April 12, 2024, 02:50:27 PM »
Sorry it took so long to get to this.


There is s limit to the size of an image file that you can post - 3 megabytes is the ceiling, and a max of five files per post.  It's to keep the storage requirements lower.  The problem you run into, though, is that modern smartphones with built-in multi-megapixel cameras can create images that exceed this file size without much difficulty.


You can use simple image software to create a copy of your image file that's lower in resolution or smaller in size, thus reducing the size of the file.  You can also try to lower the resolution of the image in the camera software when you're taking the picture, making it easier to post without an editing step.

3
Playing Card Plethora / Re: Every David Blaine Deck Released
« on: April 12, 2024, 02:37:46 PM »
Hi,

I have listed every single deck David Blaine has made/released
There are 4 tabs:

1st tab: All Decks Including Signed and Different Seal
2nd tab: All Decks Without Signed and Different Seal
3rd tab: All Posters
4th tab: Other Memorabilia

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1P-vubve0nuC3v04tCWofItEcflCylYkOfulpTHtwwvo/edit?usp=sharing

I'm pretty sure this is everything.
Let me know if I've missed anything or needs changing.

Thanks


For the Split Spades Lions Sepia Edition, if I remember correctly, it was just a sepia card back printed on the box, while the cards inside were blue backed.  Sure, it's less common than a pack of blue-backed cards in the blue-backed box, but I don't know if I'd go as far as calling it the "Sepia Edition."  As I understand it, they considered making cards with that color, got as far as printing boxes for them, but decided before printing the cards themselves not to make the sepia backed version.  Rather than waste the boxes, they used them for blue decks.

4
A Cellar of Fine Vintages / Re: Steamboat 999 Brick Box Tax Wrapper
« on: April 12, 2024, 02:32:20 PM »
Getting to the end of selling my accumulation and not sure how rare this box and wrapper are. I know sealed decks are common and these are not original to the Box.


Any time you find even a pack of cards in the box from the "vintage era" - between 20-100 years old - it's not common.  Sealed and unused, less common.  An intact brick box like that one - I'd have to call it super rare.  It's not the kind of thing your typical playing card consumer would have gotten their hands on, unless they were buying for a poker club or something like that.  In the condition they're in - it's really an awesome find.

5
That a c1918 USPCC salesman?s sample book I picked up a while ago. The seller was overseas, Greece, I think.


It's not simply "circa" 1918 - it's on the money 1918!  That was the only year (and not even a full year at that) in which the Victory series decks were available for sale - they were pulled off the market shortly after "the Great War" had been won.  I think they were available from April to November.  Any sales books before that wouldn't have had the samples, and any books after that would have had those decks pulled as they were no longer available - even if only by pulling the cards off the pages.

6
Hello, and welcome to the forum.


I took the liberty of moving your post to a more appropriate message board.  Introduce Yourself is more for just that, introductions, while here in the Playing Card Plethora is where people come to learn about decks, new and not so new!


Let me know if you have any questions!

7
A Cellar of Fine Vintages / Re: New Discovery - The Wizard's Pack
« on: April 12, 2024, 02:21:52 PM »
I am picturing below, five photos of a recently discovered "magic" deck called The Wizard's Pack of Playing Cards, issued by Adams and Company, 25 Bromfield Street, Boston, MA., that is not in the Hochman Encyclopedia. Both the front of the OB and the inside front cover of the accompanying 8-page booklet of directions state "Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by Adams & Co., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington." The first photo is of the front of the original box and the second photo shows the rather plain Ace of Spades. The third photo shows the KH which clearly indicates that this deck was manufactured by Dougherty. The cards are square cornered with no indices and the fourth photo shows the pattern back design. The cards measure 2 15/32" x 3 9/16" but, as is indicated in the instruction booklet, the deck has been taper cut (very subtly) so that one end is approximately 1/32" shorter than the opposite end, thus, enabling the user to perform a variety of tricks with these cards. The fifth photo shows the opening two pages from the booklet of directions. I found it interesting to note that later in that decade, The Waterproof Playing Card Co., would have their place of business several doors down at 50 Bromfield Street but Adams & Co. had already relocated to No. 4 Pearl Street in Boston by 1874. Although the name Adams was quite well known in Boston, I also had to wonder if there was any connection between the Adams who issued this deck and the famous S.S. Adams in N.J. who issued the many different marked decks some 50 years later.


Hey, Toby,


If I was a betting man, I'd wager that these cards were manufactured not so much for magic as they were for gambling, specifically cheating at gambling.  I could easily imagine a few ways that a faro dealer could take advantage of a deck like this and not have to resort to faro shuffling - perhaps it's possible that some card players were getting wise to the faro shuffling trick used by the house in order to keep the deck stacked with a certain number of tie draws, allowing them to keep all the bets made.  It's just that they look so much like a faro deck, I suspect strongly that many if not most of these decks, back when they were made, ended up on gaming tables and not in a magician's routines.

9
Your photos do this deck some justice.  Great!

10
That's the site that got me into collecting! Best resource out there for all things Bicycle.


I'll be the first to say it's a great website, but it's really more for the vintage collector going for the older card backs from the 1950s all the way to the origin of the brand.  There's much less info on modern decks - for that, portfolio52.com, while imperfect in terms of getting all things in print, has a much more extensive record of newer decks, and for brands beyond just Bicycle.  It's run by club member Alex Chin, if I recall.

11
Design & Development / Re: customize name memory flash card for kid
« on: April 06, 2024, 06:26:37 AM »
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/digitalcat/colorful-flash-memory-card-for-kid/

please let me know what you guys thanks, thanks


They're nice enough for what they are.  But they're flash cards for learning animal names.  Most of the collectors here are more into the international standard deck - 52 cards, four suits, 13 ranks, etc.


Good luck with the project.

EDIT: I see I'm too late.  It died with just one backer.  That might be a record - unless someone out there had a zero-backer project...

12
I went to check out your Etsy shop - looks like it's offline.  The link you gave is dead.

13
A Cellar of Fine Vintages / Re: Ask the Experts at 52 Plus Joker
« on: April 06, 2024, 06:23:20 AM »
Bicycle card question...

There are hundreds of Bicycle back designs (if not more) but reference material seems to be almost universally limited to 82 vintage backs. I know there are vintage decks and modern decks but today's modern is tomorrow's vintage. What's defining that specific cutoff point?


Sorry this went so long unanswered.


This book is the main reason:
https://bicyclecards.org/mrs-robinsons/


It was printed in the 1950s and listed all the Bicycle backs that were known by the author to exist at the time.  For a long time, that was it, just those backs - I guess USPC didn't take on a lot of custom work in the pre-digital age unless you ran a casino and were planning to buy tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of decks.  Making a new deck design involved a lot of hard labor in the pre-digital days using engraved plates and other such fun, laborious methods to print.  It's not that long ago that people didn't have computers for design and print work and to make the plates for an offset printer.


You are correct in that today's new decks are tomorrow's vintage decks, and to go a step further, today's vintage decks are tomorrow's antique decks - and we don't have a category beyond antique!  A rough ballpark figure is that decks past 20 years old are vintage, decks past 100 years old are antique.


Now, there seems to be an implied question in there: where can I find the catalog that lists all of the Bicycle card backs from that booklet to today.  And you won't like the answer: there isn't one.  USPC over the years changed hands at least a half-dozen or more times, and with each change, there was a lot of upheaval in terms of taking care of what was valuable in the short term (decks printed in that moment) and not what isn't actively generating income (archives, old records, etc.).  So the records at USPC are likely not complete, and probably not well organized at this point, with much it still being stored analog, not digital.  They can certainly find a lot of stuff, but they would be very hard pressed to create a record of every single Bicycle back design and face design printed and used from the dawn of the brand to today - it's well over 130 years of info by now.

14
Introduce Yourself / Re: Rubenith's Introduction
« on: October 31, 2023, 02:58:21 AM »
Greetings everyone, I am Rubenith! I come from Australia

I like to perform cardistry and magic, albeit unskillfully, alongside playing general card games (Like Blackjack and Poker!)

I hope I can get to meet some of you around the forum, you might see me around the "Deck Review" areas!

よろしくお願いします! (Nice to meet you)


Hey, welcome to the forum.  Give me a shout if you need anything.

15
Playing Card Plethora / Re: KICKSTARTER: Sir Lancelot & Sir Galahad
« on: October 31, 2023, 02:56:44 AM »
Hi!


Project looks good.  A little heavy on the extras, though.  Gotta be careful that your project doesn't start looking like a bazaar, or worse, a yard sale.


You should upload images instead of linking them - your link is broken.

17
What happened to the project? Canceled?

19
Introduce Yourself / Re: Hello!
« on: October 31, 2023, 02:11:03 AM »
Hello, My name is Jeff Scanlan. I just recently joined. I am a former professional magician of 30 years, who was mentored by one of the greatest magicians- Eugene Burger. Currently, I am a professional speaker, author, and artist of both Impossible Bottles and 3-D cut decks of playing cards.

Both my bottles & 3-D decks can be seen here - https://BottleMagic.com

I collect all kinds of decks of playing cards with an emphasis on Bicycle decks of cards. I'm looking forward to being a part of this group and learning more about the club members.


Welcome to the boards!  Nice to have you here.

20
Introduce Yourself / Re: Hello!
« on: September 11, 2023, 06:49:08 PM »
Hi all! My name is Justin and I am from Texas. I love to play poker and have always collected cards. I recently designed and had my own setups created. Looking forward to seeing what you all have in your collections.


Welcome aboard, Justin.  Pull up a chair at the table and we'll deal you in!


Our club's convention is about a month away now - go to https://52plusjoker.org for more information.  Some of it will be presented live via Zoom; it's worth checking out.

21
The Conversation Parlor / Re: USPCC CODE 1898"A"
« on: September 11, 2023, 06:47:08 PM »
I think there are enough examples out there now to show that letter code dating began before 1904.  I use Joseph Pierson?s updated chart found here:  https://bicyclecards.org/uspcc-dating-code/


hi,Chuqii

Thanks for agreeing with me.
Thank you very much.


Gentlemen, I'm simply "the devil's advocate" here.  It's entirely possible that your information is correct and that the date codes extend back as far as 1898.  But it's also possible that the people I've heard from, long-time and heavily experienced collectors, that the date codes don't go that far back and are not always 100% accurate as to year of manufacture.  Considering the years of experience accumulated between Lee and Tom, I'd be leaning in their direction, short of hard physical proof.  Doesn't mean I'm calling you out as absolutely wrong - just that the odds aren't in your favor, though you could still be right.  I'm not immune to new ideas and concepts that refute what I've known before, but I do try to consider the sources of both old and new ideas and concepts to determine which of them would be more likely to be correct.


So, truce, fellows?  :))

22
Playing Card Plethora / Re: SNEAK PEAK of the First Project from Room One
« on: September 05, 2023, 02:47:43 AM »
https://www.instagram.com/roomonecards/


I'm looking at the designs in Instagram.


In my opinion, the faux aging isn't doing your deck any favors.  If you want it to look like newspapers, then make it look like newspapers - color it to match the color of new newspaper stock of the era, which was probably a grayish white.  Faux aging has been very overused at this point by other designs over the past several years.


On the Joker index, the text is hard to read.  Perhaps printing it at a ninety-degree angle in a single line instead of one letter on top of the next would give a cleaner, easier-to-read look to it.


What the hell is up with that scribble on the deck back design?  It takes what looked like a promising design and makes it kind of ugly.  I'd suggest doing something - almost anything - to replace this with some kind of symmetrical image.  Perhaps the gauge of a Geiger counter?  Then you can also render those numbers around the circle in the center in a way that doesn't turn the deck's back into a one-way design.  There are a lot of people who are dead set against buying one-way backs.


I'd also avoid having face designs that extend past the bleed line, like that airplane on the two of hearts.  Believe it or not, you can spot that line work from the edge of the deck in a stack of cards, meaning anyone could cut straight to that two of hearts on demand, if they know what to look for.  Whenever you want to print into the bleed, you really should do it not just for a few cards, but for every card in the deck, in a uniform, radially-symmetrical manner, so you can't identify a card from the deck's edge.  But honestly, you're best off not even doing that, because if your printer doesn't have perfect registration when cutting the cards out of the deck sheet, you'll wind up with a one-way design that's nearly as easy to use as a stripper deck.


The overall concept is pretty good.  I'd tweak those pips a bit - they look a little on the crude, hand-drawn side.  You may also consider removing the frames from the indices to make them easier to read - just have some blank space around them to separate them from the background art.  Lighten the newspapers a bit and make the pips darker, so they stand out more - if people have a hard time seeing the pips, they have a hard time using the deck to play cards with as well.  I suspect you really like your newsprint, but it's dominating the design when it's supposed to be in the background.


And on the topic of those newspaper images...  If this is the "Oppenheimer" deck, why are we seeing images of all sorts of events from World War II, many of which have nothing directly to do with Oppenheimer?  Maybe instead of having newspaper front pages, you should look into getting a hold of technical drawings of the Manhattan Project's "A-bomb" or some of the other government files about Oppenheimer.  Many of those documents will have been typed on a manual typewriter, so they'll have a look that's more in line with your indices and other select elements you've chosen.  It would not be hard to find enough images of such documents to fill out a deck of 52 cards, and if they're redacted, all the better - it would look kind of cool, I think.  Instead of hand-drawn images of elements like a bomb, a fighter plane or a skull with what looks like worms coming out of it, leave them out and go with just the technical docs printed light and your pips printed dark - not too big on the pips, but not so small that they get lost in the background image.


That's my two cents.  :))

23
The Conversation Parlor / Re: USPCC CODE 1898"A"
« on: September 05, 2023, 02:29:03 AM »
You might find this story I did about Fireside helpful.   https://pcconnections.weebly.com/mr-wilson-and-fireside-games.html


This link is dead, due to your update of the article.


https://pcconnections.weebly.com/mr-wilson-and-fireside-games---updated-aug-2022.html


Touya, I'm not entirely convinced about the use of the letter codes on the jokers.  I was told by none other than Tom Dawson himself that there were numerical and alphanumerical codes in place on the joker for many decks, but that no strict correspondence could be established between those codes and the date of manufacture - sometimes even the code on the Ace of Spades wasn't created in accordance with the established pattern.


Lee Asher has stated on his website, in his article on dating USPC decks, that the letter codes on Aces of Spades didn't come into existence until 1904 - and other articles I've read corroborate this.


https://www.leeasher.com/blog/how-to-date-a-deck-of-playing-cards.php


As far as the continued use of the letter codes - the new numerical system makes dating a deck more of a science than an art, allowing you to know the exact week of production, but with the codes only being used on decks produced by USPC rather than produced by a third party and printed by USPC, it's of limited usefulness - though many if not most late-model decks do also bear copyright information, often found on the bottom of the tuck box.

24
A Cellar of Fine Vintages / Re: Unlisted Congress back?
« on: September 05, 2023, 02:05:21 AM »
That's an excellent find, really.  Good job!

25
Hochman Updates / Re: Chapter 24 - Exposition and World's Fair Cards
« on: September 05, 2023, 02:02:43 AM »
SX12 - Los Leones Naipes #71 USPC - Hochman lists this as a 40 card deck for playing hombre, but I have a 48 card deck c1897, so maybe 48 card deck was added later.


It's also very possible that the "40" was a typo and should have been "48".  I've heard of short decks before (fewer than the International Standard of 52), but for Spanish decks, I recall there's usually 48.  I could be mistaken, but it's what I recall.

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