Quote from: Sher143 on February 05, 2014, 02:15:22 AM

What's the difference between Erlanger and Cincinnati factories? The Cincinnati ones are better? And what's the story behind the seals? Terribly curious.

Cincinnati, Ohio was the old factory that shut down in 2009.  By about August of that year, operations had been shifted to Erlanger, Kentucky - a suburb of Cincinnati that's actually a bit closer to the metropolitan area's international airport.

There was a notable drop in quality with the shift to Kentucky.  For custom decks, it was simply a "shakedown" period when they were ironing out the kinks of the new printing equipment.  For the bread-and-butter products like Bicycle Rider Backs, the quality was believed to have been lowered just a tiny bit - enough for some people to at least think they've noticed it.  For example, I have a pack of Tally Ho Circle Backs in a Cincinnati Box that were made in Kentucky in '10 that have inconsistent shades of color on the card backs, almost as if they'd been cut from a few different sheets from different portions of the print run.

The biggest issue in the shakedown period was noted in their custom work.  They had to adjust their Bicycle stock to be just a little lighter (from about 325 g/m² to 300 g/m²) in order to work better in the new Heidelburg printing press.  That in itself wasn't a problem, but at some point many decks had finish issues, especially those with unusual or metallic inks - some examples would be the Stephen Rooks decks he printed with backing from Diavoli in Germany and USPC's own Bicycle Tragic Royalty deck, which used a heavy grey in on most of the cards' surfaces and a fluorescent, UV-sensitive ink on the court faces.

With the development of Magic Finish, first commercially used on Ellusionist's Gold Arcane deck as a real-world test of the product, followed by the subsequent policy change making the new coating the default finish for custom decks, the problems seem to have become a thing of the past.  I'm certain the time spent learning the ins and outs of the new machines was also a contributing factor.  Any custom decks and most standard decks made roughly from 2011 to present in Erlanger would likely exceed the quality of the Cincinnati plant in its final few years at the least.

Thanks for the info, Don!

How did you figure out that the ones with the black seals were Erlanger made cards placed in Cincinnati boxes?

Hey Don, or anyone else that might know, did the Bee decks see any change in quality in the transition phase? I've handled a Kentucky and Ohio version and couldn't notice any difference.

Quote from: Don Boyer on February 07, 2014, 07:35:25 AM

Quote from: Sher143 on February 06, 2014, 05:19:57 AM

Thanks for the info, Don!

How did you figure out that the ones with the black seals were Erlanger made cards placed in Cincinnati boxes?

Someone else figured it out before me and passed on the info.

Oh, okay. I was kinda wondering how that person knew for sure the cards were made in Erlanger, but I think I got it.

Coincidentally, by boyfriend just recently bought me pack of blue bikes for me to use (since he knows I don't open most of my decks) and it was a Cincinnati box, too. It had a black seal. Upon closer inspection,  I noticed on one of the jokers under that the USPCC address that was listed was Erlanger, Kentucky.

NOOOOOOO I missed out on the sale D:

Does anybody here know anybody who is a "member" at Costco?

You can pick up a brick of brand new bikes for $14 and change at Costco. Add your local sales tax, and that's *still* less than the sale price from T11 plus shipping.