This message is targeted to a select few.

I purchased a brick of the Black Crowns with the purpose of reselling some of them.  I heard some complaints that a few people were shut out when they tried to buy or got skittish when the shipping calculated was through the roof.

While I did say I was reselling some, I didn't say I had to sell them at market rates!

I'm willing to part with some decks at $20 a pack, limit two per customer, first three people who respond, trades will be considered.  But there's a catch...

The only people allowed to take advantage of this offer are the people who posted they got shut out of the sale on the "NEW DECK - Black Crown Deck" forum between the time the deck sold out and the time of this posting.  By my calculations, the list includes:

FIVEofHEARTS
Atheosile
Alex

If any of you three are interested, PM me.  Funds paid in US dollars, either PayPal or a postal money order accepted.  You pay shipping, method of your choice - my preference is US Postal Service.  You're also on your own for any import duty/tax you may be charged if you're out of the country.  If you aren't on my list and feel you should be eligible, PM me with the reason why and I'll consider it.  Offer expires in just under a week - 12:01am Sunday, 4 December 2011, New York standard time.

I just wanted to do you guys a favor, let you have the deck you wanted and make only a modest profit, since if this is anything like Red Artifice they're likely to trade for at least $50 a pack.  Alex, I might be willing to trade for a few extra Vortex decks or other Vortex-related goodies!

Note: "late model" means decks made in the last dozen or so years from Cincinnati, "early" Erlanger decks would be (c) 2009 or 2010, "current issue" would be 2011 (or later, depending on how long this topic lasts).

I know everyone here likely has some form of a love-hate relationship to the classic Bicycle Rider Backs.  They're cheap to buy, but some feel they're cheaply made as well.  They're very recognizable, but boring as hell to look at after a while.  Not often do we see a custom deck using Bicycle stock - most prefer to upgrade to Tally-Ho, Bee, Aristocrat or something else that isn't standard-issue Bicycle stock.  Most of the best gaffed card/deck tricks use the Rider Back, or have been until the recent copyright issues.  (The only gaffs axed by USPC were ones that made any alterations to the back design, Ace of Spades or Joker.  No Twilight Angels, no marked decks, no distorted/warped Aces of Spades, no weird variations on the Joker like reveals, etc.  The only major change with the Mandolin Back is that you can tweak the back as you want, but you can't tweak the AoS or the Joker in any Bicycle design - replace it, but not tweak it.)  And the air-cushion finish nowadays can mean practically anything - most new decks makers want some other finish that's not covered by this restriction - a restriction that USPC seems to enforce randomly.  E gets told that new Bicycle designs have to say air-cushion even if they're done with "Performance Coating", when meanwhile the Bike Brimstone says "Magic Finish" and half of the new Pro Bikes from CARC are "Ivory Finish".

But back to my point (wow, do I tend to ramble)!  You've got your choice of three different types of the basic deck, and you're not concerned about the box design change.  Which one do you feel is the best quality?  USPC has finally acknowledged that the early Erlanger decks were flawed - I remember getting one that had a diagonal groove cut into several of the cards like the cut cards were fed wrong through some machine.  (Yes, I got the guaranteed replacement deck, and surprisingly fast.)  But they further state that the current issue from Erlanger is up to snuff and even better than the Cincinnati decks due to improvements in quality.  Do you believe them?  Do you care?  Do you just hate the new box design enough to lose all interest in Bike Riders?

While you're here, please feel free to comment about your favorite (or least favorite) non-Bikes, Bikes, boutique brands/models versus the standard issue decks, etc.  Heck, you can even talk about other manufacturers, though that topic seems to rarely come up around here - most of you are USPC-faithful, even if you don't like every decision they've ever made, and some explicitly would never buy a deck from another printer.

I didn't know where to put this, since it's a post relevant to card users (and maybe collectors) but has nothing to do with actual cards.  I took a little bit of ribbing for buying this stuff and announcing it here (I believe it was in the forum for Fantastique cards, which, by the way, are pretty fantastic.)  Anyway, here’s what you’ve been cracking wise about.

The lotion arrived in a plain brown box, inside of which was an miniature burlap drawstring pouch, inside of which was the bottle and lots of shreds of crinkle-cut paper.  The fancy-looking pump comes in two parts, a straw and the pump itself.  Unscrew the bottle, remove the safety seal, add the pump and you’re in business.

The lotion itself is a creamy, almost fluffy concoction, with a consistency somewhere between whipped cream and whipped butter.  When I sniffed the opened bottle before inserting the pump, I couldn’t pick up any fragrance (though I am nearly the olfactory equivalent of needing Coke-bottle glasses).  When spread on the skin, however, you can’t help but pick it up – a strong, rich scent of roasted coffee beans; enticing but not overpowering or overbearing.  The fragrance fades fairly quickly, so you needn’t worry about it clashing with your favorite colognes or perfumes.

On the hands, it spreads softly with a moist, utterly non-greasy feeling to it.  I found it absorbed into the skin very quickly and that a small portion (say, maybe a half-squirt of the pump) is enough for thoroughly covering your hands.  My girlfriend liked both the scent and the texture of my skin afterwards; she stated that using this twice a day would probably reduce some of the cuticle damage my hands are prone to.

Now, how about when I grabbed that deck of Karnival Hornets about ten seconds after application?  No problem.  There was no residue feel and it left no trace at all on the cards. My hands felt moist but not abnormally so; not greasy, not oily, not messy.  Card control was utterly unaffected.

Is this stuff expensive.  Oh, hell yeah.  But is it outrageously so?  No, honestly, it isn't.  Is it worth what you pay for it?  I'd have to say in my opinion, yes, it is.

"But Don," you're thinking to yourself, "there are so many cheaper brands on the market that would do just fine - I think you got ripped off!"  Well, there are moisturizers and there are moisturizers, just like there are playing cards and there are playing cards.  These would be closer to something like Jerry's Nuggets than, oh, a cheap-stock smooth-finish deck made in China with pictures of the last tourist trap you visited.  (No offense to the Chinese, but most of the Chinese decks that make it to American shores leave many somethings to be desired, quality-wise.)

Decent moisturizers do exist at the Bikes and Bees level, but many of them smell like my girlfriend, none of them smell as nice as the D&D lotion, and some leave the hands feeling too greasy to handle playing cards until several minutes after they've been applied (or maybe after you wipe your hands on a towel).  I was able to hit the cards seconds after putting this stuff on, it soaked in so quickly.  The coffee oils are an antioxidant, the jojoba and shea butter absorbs into the skin quickly with no residue and the vitamin E oil is the all-around good-for-the-skin vitamin.

While the bottle is only eight ounces, you use it in only small doses, so I imagine it would last a little while - perhaps you'd only just be finishing it before the expiration date.  Yes, they have an expiration date of something like six to eight months - this is an all-organic lotion, without the funky preservative chemicals you'll find in most every brand from the corner chain-store pharmacy.  And the bottle itself, with the handwritten label, numbered stamp and steel pump sitting on top of ye olde school caramel-colored glass, is something you'll want to display rather than hide behind the medicine cabinet mirror or in the back of a shelf in the closet.

Magicians and cardists use their hands to perform all the time, with a few dozen or so eyes focused on your every move.  I actually get my hands manicured because I see my hands as my main tools of the trade, more important than playing cards, coins (and coin shells!), foam balls or a close-up pad.  Moist, clean, attractive hands get positive attention from your audience, period.  If you can afford the luxury, Dan and Dave's Hand Lotion is worth purchasing.