[TXT] Emily The Strange [PICS]

[DeckReview]

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Pretty cool deck I found at Fry's. Here is my review on them...

Box:
It's just a clear plastic hard case. Nothing special.

Extra cards
You have two "Stranger" cards that act as the jokers of the deck. One is red, the other black and they're both different. You have another card that says "play by your own rules.". And finally there is an ad card.




Design:
The deck is fully custom. all the faces, aces, and the courts The ace of spades is in the picture above. It has silver metallic ink. All cards that feature silver ink has metallic silver ink. The cards have red, shiny gilded edges that look awesome. I think the style of the faces fits well with the deck. It has a one way back.

[]

]Handling and feel
They feel waxy like a candle front and back. The finish is rough  which means fanning is terrible. The gilded edges don't help the fanning ability at all. They can le paul spread but a very different kind of pressure is needed. Pressure fans are impossible. Springs are chunky.  They don't giant fan.




At least they can faro pretty good. It ruins the gilding though. Le paul spreads ruin the gilding too. And of course, these cards are great for cuts because of the waxy feel.




CONCLUSION

These cards suck when it comes to handling. The cards were made in China so it is pretty much a given. They look cool but that's about it. For collectors and maybe the extreme cutting people.

[Lara Krystle "Lane"]

Yes I agree that this is made here in China.
I've seen this around. But even for a non-USPCC deck. Its still a bit more expensive here comparing to the standard bikes.
It would be really nice if they were reprinted. I'm a huge fan of Emily a few years ago.
Thanks for the review.

[Don Boyer]

I will grant you that much of the Chinese decks that end up on foreign shores are indeed inferior in quality, but a blanket statement like what you said about Chinese decks being naturally inferior is just completely off-base and inaccurate.

The Chinese can manufacture some excellent decks of playing cards, something Lee Asher introduced me to when we met in the spring.  He handed me a deck of Yaoji playing cards - these are like the Bicycles of China, nearly every household has at least one pack of these.  They compare very favorably to anything made in the US, and have features that USPC doesn't even dream of, like holographically-etched cellophane wrapping!

The USPC loves to brag about being the "biggest playing card company in the world."  Last year, Yaoji produced nearly SIX TIMES the number of decks USPC did...

The only true issue with Chinese playing cards as a whole is that the companies making them generally save their superior products for domestic sale and use rather than offering them to foreign companies on contract or exporting them themselves.

Nearly forgot: nice review, but you left out an important fact.  Gilded decks in general are NOT meant for performance, but simply to look good.  The gilding interferes and gets all over the place with even light handling.  I'm sure it's part of the reason why much expense was spared when applying a finish - they were meant more to look at, less to play with.