Deck Review - Bharata Playing Cards Series 2 - Guru

[Magic_Orthodoxy]

Video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeB3tGCHnkA

Bharata Playing Cards evoke the kings, queens and warriors from the stories of the Mahabharata, the epic poem from the country of Bharata, true name of India.

Fully custom designed cards using Kishangarh style illustrations
Rarity Scale: R3
56 Poker size cards (includes 3rd Joker and one Gaff card- double backer)
Elegant tuckbox with embossing & silver foil
Inner tuck printing with silver foil
Premium embossed black core European card stock with linen magic finish
Limited Print Run of 500 decks only (~70% copies of the decks were backed by backers on Kickstarter)
Printed by WJPC

Get yours here: https://guruplayingcards.com/

[Don Boyer]

Rarity Scale: R3

Could you describe your Rarity Scale for us?  Most people simply state how many decks were printed and leave it at that.

[Magic_Orthodoxy]

LOL

It's not MY "rarity scale"

http://www.thehistorybank.com/perspective/may10_4.html

https://www.providentmetals.com/knowledge-center/collectible-coins/universal-rarity-scale.html

[Don Boyer]

LOL

It's not MY "rarity scale"

http://www.thehistorybank.com/perspective/may10_4.html

https://www.providentmetals.com/knowledge-center/collectible-coins/universal-rarity-scale.html

Ah, but the problem with just saying "R3" is the rarity of a given deck is that you have several different scales that use R3.  Depending on the scale, it can be as few as 201 or as many as 1,500+.  Which scale were you referring to?  Sheldon?  Judd?  Fuld/Kanzinger?  Bowers Universal Rarity Scale?  H-K 1st Edition?

The biggest problem is that the rarity scales you're pointing me to were designed for numismatic purposes.  It decreases clarity on how rare a deck is rather than making things simpler by just saying "Oh, this deck?  They made 1,000 of them."

That's my rarity scale: they made X of them, done.  Short and sweet, no guesswork needed.

[leangyan]

Hi Don,

Here is the rarity scale. Created by user named Magikfingerz on UC and I liked it. Hope it gives you bit more context.

I think we need a new term to describe decks with relatively small, one-time print runs. "Limited" is just too broad in its technical definition (basically "finite"), and its use can thus vary greatly among deck producers and collectors. I've scoured thesaurus for something that might fit, but I haven't come up with anything so far. Perhaps just add some sort of prefix or extra word to the existing "limited" to differentiate them?

Perhaps we could create our own rarity scale, like coin collectors use:


R8 = 1-3 known (estimated), 'Unique or Nearly Unique'
R7 = 4-12 known, 'Extremely Rare'
R6 = 13-30 known, 'Very Rare'
R5 = 31-75 known, 'Rare'
R4 = 76-200 known, 'Very Scarce'
R3 = 201-500 known, 'Scarce'
R2 = 501-1250 known, 'Uncommon'
R1 = over 1251 known, 'Common'

Regards,
Sunish

[EndersGame]

I'm with Don Boyer on this one.  I can't see how a rarity scale like this is helpful at all - it just obscures the actual print numbers.

I have some experience with rare coins and numismatics, and think that it is a different beast.  With the custom playing card industry, it's usually standard procedure for the size of a print run to be publicized, and that is the number that is relevant. 

Just tell us how many copies of a deck were published.  That's more helpful than a more vague R rating, especially if it's not a commonly adopted scale - that doesn't communicate anything clear or helpful.

[Don Boyer]

Hi Don,

Here is the rarity scale. Created by user named Magikfingerz on UC and I liked it. Hope it gives you bit more context.

I think we need a new term to describe decks with relatively small, one-time print runs. "Limited" is just too broad in its technical definition (basically "finite"), and its use can thus vary greatly among deck producers and collectors. I've scoured thesaurus for something that might fit, but I haven't come up with anything so far. Perhaps just add some sort of prefix or extra word to the existing "limited" to differentiate them?

Perhaps we could create our own rarity scale, like coin collectors use:


R8 = 1-3 known (estimated), 'Unique or Nearly Unique'
R7 = 4-12 known, 'Extremely Rare'
R6 = 13-30 known, 'Very Rare'
R5 = 31-75 known, 'Rare'
R4 = 76-200 known, 'Very Scarce'
R3 = 201-500 known, 'Scarce'
R2 = 501-1250 known, 'Uncommon'
R1 = over 1251 known, 'Common'

Regards,
Sunish

Anyone who thinks that a deck printed in numbers fewer than 5,000 is not very attuned to the industry as a whole, solely the card collectors' end of it.  By this scale, the Bicycle Rider Back in red would be an R1, but so would the Bicycle Black Ghost First Edition, a very scarce deck that, when you can find it, trades for around $100 these days.  The equally-as-rare Gold Arcane deck would also be an R1 on that scale, as common as Mavericks or Streamlines, when there were only 5,000 Gold Arcanes printed and one sold on eBay about a week ago for $62.  There's nothing about this R-scale that even indicates important factors like how the Bicycle Black Ghost 1st Ed. and Gold Arcane were never actually made available for sale, per se - the producer, Ellusionist, simply gave them away either as premiums to customers buying certain dollar amounts of products or, in the case of the former deck, originally only available as gifts to well-known magicians in the community.  Would YOU pay $62 for Streamlines or $100 for Bicycle Rider Backs, new and mint-in-sealed-box?

Magic_Orthodoxy, my advice is ditch the silly R-scale and just go with actual numbers of decks made, period.  Zero confusion, easy to understand, period.

[leangyan]

Hi Don,

Here is the rarity scale. Created by user named Magikfingerz on UC and I liked it. Hope it gives you bit more context.

I think we need a new term to describe decks with relatively small, one-time print runs. "Limited" is just too broad in its technical definition (basically "finite"), and its use can thus vary greatly among deck producers and collectors. I've scoured thesaurus for something that might fit, but I haven't come up with anything so far. Perhaps just add some sort of prefix or extra word to the existing "limited" to differentiate them?

Perhaps we could create our own rarity scale, like coin collectors use:


R8 = 1-3 known (estimated), 'Unique or Nearly Unique'
R7 = 4-12 known, 'Extremely Rare'
R6 = 13-30 known, 'Very Rare'
R5 = 31-75 known, 'Rare'
R4 = 76-200 known, 'Very Scarce'
R3 = 201-500 known, 'Scarce'
R2 = 501-1250 known, 'Uncommon'
R1 = over 1251 known, 'Common'

Regards,
Sunish

Anyone who thinks that a deck printed in numbers fewer than 5,000 is not very attuned to the industry as a whole, solely the card collectors' end of it.  By this scale, the Bicycle Rider Back in red would be an R1, but so would the Bicycle Black Ghost First Edition, a very scarce deck that, when you can find it, trades for around $100 these days.  The equally-as-rare Gold Arcane deck would also be an R1 on that scale, as common as Mavericks or Streamlines, when there were only 5,000 Gold Arcanes printed and one sold on eBay about a week ago for $62.  There's nothing about this R-scale that even indicates important factors like how the Bicycle Black Ghost 1st Ed. and Gold Arcane were never actually made available for sale, per se - the producer, Ellusionist, simply gave them away either as premiums to customers buying certain dollar amounts of products or, in the case of the former deck, originally only available as gifts to well-known magicians in the community.  Would YOU pay $62 for Streamlines or $100 for Bicycle Rider Backs, new and mint-in-sealed-box?

Magic_Orthodoxy, my advice is ditch the silly R-scale and just go with actual numbers of decks made, period.  Zero confusion, easy to understand, period.

Hey Don,

#1 - It is not David/Magic Orthodoxy's rarity scale. It was put by a UC member Tom/Magikfingerz.


Secondly, the examples that you gave above are outliers and if you look at rarity scale, you are not going to find any reference what a deck sells in eBay or aftermarket. This rarity scale just tries to differentiate the term "limited' as such, nothing more nothing less.

If it hasn't happened till now in playing card world, should we simply let it go as is or think about what can we do about it? I am not sure if Tom/ Magikfingerz did give this more thought or flesh out more details around it. It resonated with me, and that's the reason I used it.

Hope it gives you a bit more context around it.

[Don Boyer]

Hey Don,

#1 - It is not David/Magic Orthodoxy's rarity scale. It was put by a UC member Tom/Magikfingerz.


Secondly, the examples that you gave above are outliers and if you look at rarity scale, you are not going to find any reference what a deck sells in eBay or aftermarket. This rarity scale just tries to differentiate the term "limited' as such, nothing more nothing less.

If it hasn't happened till now in playing card world, should we simply let it go as is or think about what can we do about it? I am not sure if Tom/ Magikfingerz did give this more thought or flesh out more details around it. It resonated with me, and that's the reason I used it.

Hope it gives you a bit more context around it.

David might not have invented it, but he did adopt it, thus making it "his" in that sense.

I understand to some degree what you're saying, but I find using a scale of some kind simply muddies a simple, easy-to-understand number, that being the quantity of decks printed.  The scale is vague, the quantity is as precise as you can get.

The scales listed before are in reference to coinage, which in some cases are hundreds of years old.  As time passes, there's perhaps uncertainty about how many were made due to lost or destroyed records and how many of those made remain in existence and weren't destroyed, tossed into the bottom of the ocean, etc., hence the use of the scale to get a relative reference as to rarity, allowing one to adequately compare apples to apples, as it were.

Now, while we can't account for every single deck printed and its present state, whether opened, worn-out, destroyed, etc., it's a fairly good gauge of a deck's rarity to simply know how many were printed.  Maybe, in a hundred years or so, if people are still collecting playing cards, a scale to at least give an estimate of how many remain in existence would be a good thing to have, but for now, it's not that far-fetched to think that the quantity made is a good reference point for a deck's rarity in the modern-deck collecting world.  In fact, I can't think of anything that makes more sense.  It's easy to differentiate a deck's rarity based on quantity made, as long as one knows how to count and what numbers are bigger than or smaller than what other numbers; a five-year-old with an adequate education could suss it out.

(Yes, I'm really pushing it here and being a wiseass, but only for the simple reason that as a system for rarity, it couldn't possibly be easier than to know just how many were made rather than some range of possible quantities as represented by a code on a scale.  No arbitrary charts to look up or memorize, just a simple number to compare to other numbers, period.  It's like the difference between playing poker with a standard deck in the normal way or playing poker with a marked deck and the cards face down, relying on knowing an obscure marking system to know what's in play.)

I think I've exhausted my point here, unless someone has something else to add to the mix that warrants discussion?