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« on: December 27, 2013, 04:04:52 PM »
Hello All,
I made a post on the Discourse a few days ago and Don Boyer suggested I write a little introduction and post it here.
I'm first and foremost interested in sleight of hand with cards. It's this long held interest that led me to start experimenting with custom cards over 25 years ago.
Being that I started into serious study of card magic in the early 80's I was lucky enough to have cut my sleight of hand teeth on cards produced by USPCC in the 70s and early 80s before they fully adopted plastic coating. We used to have to use fanning powder to keep a deck from getting too sticky to use. As USPCC changed their coatings cards kept getting slipperier and slipperier and this caused me and others to try to collect up unused older packs. Not so much for collecting value but for a sure supply of cards we knew how to handle.
In 1988 I was in a position to introduce a new potato to the American market called Yukon Gold and in commemoration we produced about 1500 decks at International Playing Card Co. in Windsor. I was very lucky and the cards came out beautifully! I wish had more than a couple dozen decks left! This deck had the "paper" feel that USPCC was migrating away from at that time.
My interest in sleight of hand has never waned but my further interests in magic and magic history have grown over the years. In 2001 I started a foundation for the study of magic history and in 2003 this foundation started to operate a real library and research center in New York City. It's expensive to fund the payrolls etc of the librarians and employees so a few years later after Ellusionist and David Blaine had started doing custom decks I decided to get reacquainted with USPCC and to attempt to produce some custom decks with a difference. My primary interest in this new endeavor has been to produce excellent feeling and handling cards. My foundation, Conjuring Arts Research Center, started to produce large runs of cards at USPCC primarily because I believe that their web press uses a superior coating thus making better cards. Over the many decks we did at USPCC we experimented with many different papers and other changes to attempt to get what I consider excellent cards. I feel that many of the cards we have sold at Conjuring Arts represent the finest handling cards presently produced. Near the end of 2012 we decided to expand our horizons and to attempt to find and work with factories world wide. I decided that the foundation would start a proper playing card company as a separate entity and The Expert Playing Card Company LLC was formed. Very simply the EPCC exists to produce the world's best cards for those who actually use them. All proceeds and profits from anything Conjuring Arts or EPCC sells go strictly to charity. No profits are ever kept from our playing card or any other magic related ventures.
To persue more potential factories I personally went to China and visited many factories and met with even more makers who came to see me. After scouring as many as possible I decide to work with 2 asian factories. The first EPCC production was our Global Titan deck. This deck has a distinct feel and for many it performs better than almost anything else on the market. Nonetheless the coating is still a little too platicy for all tastes and the way they are cut out, although good, still has some minor cupping that you don't see with USPCC cards. The Global Titans also are designed to look a certain way. My own personal taste is for cards from the golden period of 1870-1920 and we decided to pattern our decks and style after the venerated NYCC. The Global Titan deck used a back design that Dougherty, NYCC and others used from as early as 1864 and this was really an American classic design. Historians will obviously see that we repurposed artwork from NYCC brands for Global Titans tucks, bricks and faces as well.
Looking for even better edges and a subtler coating the EPCC's second venture used a different factory and we again used rare early artwork and great Art Nouveau ideas for our Exquisite decks. We feel these cards are the best yet and without a doubt the edges and registration are the finest we have found anywhere in the world.
The EPCC is about how cards feel and we will continue to search the globe for factories with high standards and who can work with us to create cards that perform. We also realize that there are those who think calling ourselves a Playing Card Company without owning a factory is improper but that is how the world has always worked. Even now the largest company in the world, Apple Computer, doesn't own a factory. They design, commission and sell their products and can shift from factory to factory as they need to in order to compete. EPCC is no Apple computer but the "designed by" model is the same.
We have also sought out close ties to Tom and Judy Dawson and have learned a great deal from them and they have helped EPCC start a strong collection of early playing card designs. You will definitely see some of these long lost beautiful old decks revived and reintroduced for the 21st century. They will not be decks that are just reproductions but things will be modified and updated and hopefully made to appeal to a modern aesthetic.
I hope this introduction tells you a little about me and why Conjuring Arts and EPCC are in the business of selling playing cards.
Bill Kalush
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