When you are as limited on something as 25.
Do not release it in batches.
5 per day for 5 days means somebody who really wants it may have to tune in 5 days in a row and still miss out to the person with the really fast connection who sells 4 of the 5 they ended up purchasing on Ebay.
I think the idea of having everybody who wants one enter their email plus the address where you will send the item (this will help cut down on multiple sales to one person, sure people can have multiple addresses, but it is much easier to have multiple emails.)
Then you do a drawing of the entries and allow those people to purchase the item. If they do not purchase it by a certain date you do a redraw until you sell all the items.
I think this is by far the most fair way. It is completely random, it is harder for people to enter/win multiple times.  It also doesn't crash your site or bring on the ill will that comes (even when it isn't your fault) when someone goes to your site at 4:00AM tries for 3 hours and still doesn't get one.

I believe you do have to buy a whole brick of one color to get the deck from Tannen's
I was not offered a free deck when I ordered 3 of each.
Of course when I ordered they were offering the deck for $19.95 instead of $34.99 as now.
I ended up picking up 2 red and 2 black ivory and just paid the $19.95 for the special edition.
These are for the colection so I didn't need a whole brick.

Alex, is Cirque Du Soleil still in Vegas? That was an amazing show.

Which Cirque? I think there are 7 of them running right now.


If you do book through Kayak or one of the other cites you may want to ask opinions on places first.
For example- one of the lowest rates you will find for a hotel in Vegas on the Strip is The Imperial Palace... However I suggest staying far away from their, it is a rat hole.

Does the "lovely" display box and the brothers signatures actually add any value to this set?

I want to open this thing up and mount the decks on my wall and sell the ones I already have, but I have no clue if I would be better reselling this thing in a couple months and then buy the decks I am missing that are contained in it individually.
I have never had a love for custom brick boxes, due to the way I display my cards they don't get seen.

Any thoughts?
Which would be better ?
Sell the Arrcos. White lions, Ace fulton midnights, Tahoes, and Jaqks.
or
sell the whole thing in a month or two and buy the others individually.

Vegas - 3 things I must recommend you do while visiting Vegas
1. See Absinthe at Caesars, It is a hilarious Vaudevillian circus show
2 and 3. get off the beaten path and see the  pinball hall of fame and see the Bone yard. You won't regret either of them.

I believe it is "limited"/ "rare"
And they will only be releasing 55 on Friday
5 (for their 5year anniversary) x 11 ( for theory 11)= 55
They said they will release more at later date so that these won't be considered a badge of honor.
Don't worry they promised that they have boosted their network for this









Actually I made all of that up

Definitely prefer the blue seal.
The green color does not bother me, I think it will stand out nicely and look decent.
I am not fond of the message on it. It makes the deck feel more like an advertising or free giveaway deck. IMO it loses some of the class of the deck... If a deck can have class.

I think this whole situation is fantastic.

It should now be quite obvious that
1. The first deal was a better deal as far as gift "value"
2. The second deal is a better deal as far as fairness to the consumer.

As I mentioned previously the issue still is this is a FREE gift.
The only people I see who might have a legitimate reason to be upset about the second deal ( which is now in the past) are those who won the badge of honor in the first deal and were planning on reselling the box that now do not have the same value, or those who paid entirely too much for a deck in the secondary market that they should have known would eventually been released in larger quantities.

As for the original 50 boxes, although their value has gone down, their rarity still remains. Only 50 of those sets we're created and most likely only 50 will be. Sure you can build that set separately but that is not exactly the idea here. You could have done that before the release, since there were Gold Crown decks distributed that we're not in the set, granted it would cost you a lot more. The point is the box is still a badge of honor for the collector, just not maybe for the reseller, but I have no love for a reseller that would take a rare item from someone who genuinely wants it just to sell it back to that person at a inflated price.

I would call this the Virginia Slim deck.
"You've come a long way babe"

I was very "meh" when you started
but now
The back is so simple but yet so sophisticated.
The red is spot on. I don't know if any other color would have worked that well
I like this a lot.

Quote from: Aaron on August 15, 2012, 12:58:08 AM

I have to hand it to Randy and HOPC, this release went very smoothly and the deck is arguably the nicest modern deck to be released (up there with the Seasons and Tendril IMO) It is absolutley amazing

Then by all means, let him know in the topic about his deck!  I'm sure he'd love to hear it.

@Don   you can be such a Bitch 

To add on to what Don just said.
The majority of your backers are going to be US backers and if you make them add on shipping to their pledge many of them will actually think twice about pledging (especially if you charge $1.50 -$2.00/ per deck as I believe hazofhorsham suggested) I know I wouldn't back at that cost. The people who are use to paying the extra shipping are the people who buy from abroad, these are the backers that won't blink at having to add the extra money for shipping (even if thye may not like it)
The price you charge for a deck should be lower than what people would expect to pay for that deck at retail, they are making a investment in you and your product that doesn't exist yet, if they expected to pay retail price they would be better off waiting until the deck existed and they saw reviews of how it really looks and handles. I suggest $7.00 for pledges of only a couple of decks and $5.00 for pledges 10 or greater.

Fulfillment time I think 3 months should be a fair time frame.
But what I think is most important is keeping in touch with your backers and letting them know where you are at each step of the process. If there is a set back at USPCC and they will be late, let them know. Always update the backers and they will be good if you have to push that time to 3.5 - 4 months. This happened with "The Deck of The Living Dead" they had to  adjust their design and lost their printing slot, they let there backers know right away and everyone was happy.

Premiums
uncuts- yes
stickers- sure, but I agree with hazofhorsham just throw them in, maybe mention them and show them, but don't make a big deal of them.
Tshirts- your designs look great, I actually prefer you going more with the philosopher and less with the card aspect with these and I think you can use this to sell your design and get pledges from non card collectors. However Shirts are not often big sellers with card collectors and it may not be cheap to do small runs of shirts, I am pretty sure both Blue Blood and Deck of the living Dead had their own printing presses and did them themselves.
Card clips- not with your deck. I agree with Don here, I don't think your deck is going to appeal to Magicians and possibly not to cardistry people. So the interest in the card clip may not be as strong with the people who pledge your deck
Prints- This falls into the same thing as the T-shirts. I usually don't like playing card prints ( I am getting 2 with my grid deck because they came in the same pledge as the uncut sheet and I have no clue what to do with them) But prints from your deck might have appeal to more than just card collectors. If you do them well you might be able to get history and philosophy people to pledge for prints and Tshirts (Hipsters will probably pledge for the Philosophy King Tshirt as well)
low pledge level are probably not needed, they are put there for the people who like to pledge a dollar or two on just about every project just to show support, rewards are certainly not needed at these levels, especially ones that ship out (as Don said the cost would be killer)
Other premiums suggestions
-dealers coin with good and evil/ right and wrong or something else philosphical on each side.
- card box- this could turn out to be a beautiful deck and one that would be of interest to more than just card collectors (as I said magicians and cardists may not be interested)  a limited wooden card box would be a nice premium. Something for fancy display that would look good in the library near your philosophy books. A box similar to the one that was done for Seasons.


I don't have too much advice/input on costs, not having done one of these myself. What you put seemed reasonable.

I am not a flourisher or a magician, for the most part I don't care how a deck handles. If I am going to use it, it only needs to be able to shuffle and deal decently and not fall apart in an hour. If I am collecting it, it only needs to have a good design and not look cheap.
What I watch reviews for is to see what decks really look like. I like that most reviewers keep the handling part of a review until the end, I usually just turn off the video after they show me the deck.
I find that most advertising promos don't really give you the true look of a deck.
( that is why I love coming to the design section of these forums, designers often show you every card). So for me, I always feel the more reviews the merrier, because it gives more chances to view how the deck looks ( since many reviewers show it in different ways and lighting)

I would love to see more obscure decks get reviews. There are some older, unique, and expensive decks that I would like to get a look at to see if it is really worth me wasting my money on.

And I agree with a lot of what was said above. As collectors and card hobbyists we love cards and devour the information that is out there another channel that shares that info, especially with interviews from different perspectives (designers, producers, retailers, enthusiasts, flourishers, and magicians) would be a lot of fun.

I wouldn't worry about your viewership too much. You have a audience here you can advertise to, who I am sure would check it out rather quickly, and plenty of people who would pass it on to the greater community.

The only issue with viewership, and I don't mean this as an attack as I was not involved with your kickstarter campaign and don't wish to bring up the arguments, is rebuilding your image in other forum environments, which theoretically shouldn't be difficult, but would take an effort that you may not have time for.