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I recently purchased this deck of Stud Playing Cards. All the information I have read about these cards has been pretty conflicting. What I do know is:
1. They were first produced by Arrco and then by USPCC.
2. They were produced in 1980s

Can someone please tell me more about this particular deck I bought?
1. When were these produced and by whom?
2. Why is there no seal on the deck?
3. Do all the studs have this kind of blue packaging?

Additionally, when were the first Studs produced, and how many versions are out there?
Any kind of information is appreciated. Thank you,

I just answered some of your info for you in a related topic you posted.

Also, as far as Touya's research, it's exhaustive, to be sure, but when he's referring to the different versions of Studs, it's mostly variations in the packaging.  If you count just the actual cards themselves, there's been three versions to my knowledge:
1980-1987 - manufactured by Arrco in Chicago
1987-2007 - manufactured by USPC in Cincinnati - they bought Arrco in 1987 and pretty swiftly started printing the Arrco brands at their own factory.
2007-a few years ago - still by USPC, but redesigned backs with darker shades of red and blue.

Today, they're out of print.  Walgreens at some point a few years back gave up printing their own decks and started selling Bicycles instead.  They probably got a wicked-good deal for massive bulk purchasing, similar to what Walmart would get - the chain is freakin' huge these days, so they probably do have that level of buying power.

I can't seem to click on usernames without an error and wasn't able to message to get the 52+J rank, in case this post is up for deletion.
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Hi there fellow Lotrek fanatics! I am on the quest to build the most complete Lotrek collection in existence, which has now shifted away from just the decks to addons as well (coins, uncut tucks, prints, boxes, books, etc.) If you have any of these items, please feel free to reach out. I have a full list of all of Lotrek's decks on UC if you ever wanted to reference: https://unitedcardists.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=20174 and I can be found on instagram @playingcardophile as well.

I am open to negotiation, patience, and all else to help me on my journey. Transactions will take place via PayPal G&S to ensure protection of both buyer and seller. I am located in the US.

Current priorities:

• Grotesk Macabre Inferno Test Print (x/50)
• Grotesk Macabre Black Silver Edition Test Print (x/50)
• Grotesk Macabre Black Mass Silver Edition Test Print (x/50)
• Grotesk Macabre Black Mass Gold Edition Test Print (x/50)

Uncut Tucks

• Grotesque Signature
• Liturgy Treasure
• Grotesk Macabre (x/25)
• Silk Red
• Silk Blue
• Chronos Carmina

I've been more lenient with the posting rules, because we're getting considerably less traffic than we used to.  Message boards in general aren't what they used to be.

You're welcome to ask around for old Lotrek decks, but they're made in such short supply and are so highly sought-after, you'd probably do better if you asked around for a spare Shroud of Turin, or maybe an extra Gutenburg Bible, or a few Dead Sea Scrolls if you happen to have a few rolling around in your attic...  Your odds would improve if you checked on sites with heavier traffic, for certain.  Forget retailers, even the after-market ones - there's just so few Lotrek decks out there, it's a minor miracle if they ever manage to obtain one and it would sell for a king's ransom, an arm, a leg and your first- and second-born children.  And even at that price, it would sell out almost instantly.

Here's a question for the more knowledgeable Bicycle collectors out there.  I have a 1952 Bicycle New Fan back with an interesting tax stamp cancellation.  Appears to be cancelled by "VMS USA"  Anyone know what that could be?  Pics below.  Thanks for the help.

Under most circumstances, a deck of cards with a tax stamp has that stamp canceled with an inked stamp of the company that made it, which in this case would be USPC.  It sure does look like it says VMS USA, but I have no clear idea what it could mean and why it's there.

I considered acronyms, but none of them for this combination of letters would make any sense - I'd thought that maybe, just maybe, the "V" stood for "Veterans" (plural) or Veterans'" (possessive plural), as if to indicate these were for some veterans' organization, but my stab in the dark came up dry.  It was a long shot - something done for the military services would be more likely to have a tax exempt stamp on it than an actual tax stamp.  The logic behind my thinking was that the US was engaged in the Korean War at the time.

Maybe it's some secret division of USPC from the '50s?

Looking over some articles I saw on tax stamps, I considered the odds that it might be stamped for foreign sales.  But then what the heck would the IRS have to do with it, right?

I even looked up the abbreviations of some popular manufacturers of the period - not that it would be logical, but we've ruled out logical so far!  There's no match, even if you think the "V" was a "W".

I'm at a loss to even guess at this point.

Looks a lot like someone wanted to make a Transformers deck but didn't want to pay the royalties!  "...more than meets the eye!"

This topic has been moved to The Conversation Parlor.

http://www.playingcardforum.com/index.php?topic=13861.0

It's a shame that this deck didn't get funded.  Looks like a real classic design - we've seen a few come through in past years, but this one's perhaps a skosh better looking than most.

Were the cards he used square? Were there any numbers on cards. I'm trying to replicate it just for fun on my wine barrel with the glass table top over the top of it. Thank you for your time

It's a shame that so many of the photos in this thread are lost to dead links.  It's why I keep encouraging people to upload their photos instead of simply linking to them - too many topics have lost a lot of their relevance because of dead links.

Anyway, regarding Mr. Hickok's cards, they were almost certainly square-cornered, without indices, and while we know he was holding a pair of Aces and a pair of Eights, there's been much debate over what the fifth card was, and even what the exact suits of the Aces and Eights were.

You could probably replicate the look of the old cards using some parchment-like heavy paper or printing the cards onto white cardstock and aging them with used teabags (old D&D DM's trick).  I'd suggest using a guillotine-style paper cutter - you'll get much straighter lines with them.

Another lucky find in the Congress category - the scarcely seen 1903 variant of "Yacht".  Not great condition, but you take what you can find!  The box indicates that this was originally sold at a Boots stationers in England.

Considering the deck is about 120 years old, I'd say it's in excellent shape.  Any creased or torn cards, or did you really luck out and find an undamaged deck?

I don't wish to sound harsh, but I don't think you have a winner here.  There's little by way of genuinely original artwork, just some graphics, and they're kind of on the dark side - not evil, just lacking light.  For much of it, I'm failing to see the connection to the stock market or the finance industry.  Alternating stripes of green and red?  A series of X's and O's?

It's not the worst deck I've ever seen, but it's not great.

Thank you for the information. I still don't know if my employer got the story wrong or not... I was suspecting that the cards that were no longer available were Gemaco, but I haven't seen anything yet to indicate that to be true. Anyway, after reading your response, I am more knowledgeable than I was. Thanks again.

Actually, I did a little more research.

GPI, I hadn't heard much about them since they bought Gemaco - USPC had purchased Gemaco first, but was forced to sell it off to prevent anti-trust proceedings.  I just learned that GPI was itself purchased by Angel Group in May of 2019, based out of Kyoto, Japan.  Angel's long been a quality maker of playing cards for retail and casino buyers - I own a few of their decks and I like the quality.

Turns out that at some point before the purchase, GPI set up the company's North American headquarters in Las Vegas, but started manufacturing of the cards in a factory in Sonora, on the Mexico side of the US border.  I'm not sure at what point or under whose ownership that the US printing operations were shuttered, but they are indeed shuttered, it seems.  They're no longer considered a domestic manufacturer.

So if your casino is dedicated to buying from US manufacturers, USPC is the only game in town left, at least for casino-grade decks.  When the operation was sold to Cartamundi at the end of 2019, Cartamundi kept all of the US operations intact - both USPC's and their own.  In addition to playing cards made in Erlanger, Kentucky, Cartamundi has a board game factory outside of Boston and a customizable card game printer in the Dallas area - last I heard, they're the ones printing all the Magic: the Gathering and Pokemon cards, maybe Yu-Gi-Oh! as well.  USPC's print operations aren't expected to move anytime soon - they only opened their current plant in 2009 and it's still pretty close to state-of-the-art.  I doubt Cartamundi has any future plans to move their operations - nor their operations in Vitoria, Spain, where USPC subsidiary Heraclio Fournier operates a card printing plant.

As far as Liberty goes, well - they state they do casino-quality cards on their site, but they do far, far more work in the novelty, advertising and gift market; things like custom decks for wedding gifts to guests, that sort of stuff.  I'm not the guy who knows all casinos, but to my admittedly-limited knowledge, there aren't any casinos supplied by them with playing cards.  I would think if there were, they'd go through the trouble of advertising about it on their web site - and there's not a casino card to be seen.  They do a decent job of making custom tuck boxes for some boutique decks, the kind of stuff you find on Kickstarter.

So od. ds are, your casino manager might have been referring to "Gemaco" shutting down their US operations, or they might have been talking about how USPC closed their factory during the pandemic itself, then reopened to a massive backlog of orders and a a supply chain that's tied in knots.  No matter how you slice it, there's a shortage of casino-grade cards, especially ones that are pre-shuffled, and it still hasn't squared itself away yet.

I am pretty new to collecting, and I recently bought this steamboat 999 deck on eBay. It seems to have. US7b ace of spades, but it says ?United States Printing Company? instead of ?United States Playing Card Co.?, which I don?t seem to see listed in my Hochman. I attached a photo of the deck. Does anyone have any information on this deck or when it may have been made? Thanks!

It is a very cool find.  Before they were known as the US Playing Card Company, they were Russell & Morgan, then they were the US Printing Company - before they were the makers of playing cards we all know and love, they were in demand for things like large circus posters and various other advertisements.  This would have been in the infancy or toddlerhood of their playing card printing days.  From what little you've shown, they also look to be in great condition for their probable age.

There's still a number of gaps in the information catalogued in Hochman - we're attempting to fill those gaps with posts like this on the forum.  Thanks for showing us your very interesting find!

I like where you're going with this so far.  No major suggestions to add, really - looks like you're on the right track.