I'm new to this group. I'm an amateur magician and magic historian. I have a number of Bee decks dating from the 1960s when my father had a friend at Harrah's Club at Lake Tahoe who would give him souvenir decks used in play.
I noted the size of the indices on USPC Co. pack increased in size sometime around the 1960s. I don't mean the very large jumbo indices printed later but a more subtle increase of a few millimeters. This change was, I believe made to all their brands at around the same time.
Is anyone familiar with this? When and why was this change made?
The tabs on the box lids became significantly smaller, perhaps around the 1990s. Does anyone know the exact date this change was made?
At some point it became standard for casinos to print their names on the back of decks in two ovals. My understanding is this was to make second dealing more difficult. Does anyone know when this practice began?
I apologize if I am not using the correct terminology.
From the time indices came into being, they've gradually grown a bit bigger. They're easier on the eyes, but at the same time, the printer is trying to strike a balance between visibility to the player holding the hand and concealment from the players surrounding him or her! So yes, they have grown just a tad and probably because people found them easier to read.
I don't know the exact date that the flaps got smaller, but you have it about right - I'd say maybe even in the early 1980s or late 1970s. Why this happened, I don't know - personally, I liked the longer flaps.
It's far from a universal or standard practice for casinos to have their branding printed on their casino decks in dual ovals. A skilled card mechanic can still conceal a second deal with those ovals in place - a skilled card mechanic really doesn't care what's on the card backs, though it is true that certain patterns like the borderless Bee Diamond Backs and similar do make many sleights harder to spot.
Casinos offered up such designs probably because they were cheaper to make - it's a basic template offered by many card printers, USPC included as well as firms like Gemaco, Paulson, etc., and the logo fields come in more than one shape (ovals, rectangles and such). Plug in a simple logo and poof, you have a new deck for a new casino. As casinos sometimes go a little more upscale, they'll use more customized designs, often without the ovals or similar "cutout" designs.
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