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Messages - Jonathan

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1
Playing Card Plethora / Re: My One Year Anniversary Giveaway
« on: January 24, 2014, 04:59:29 AM »
Thanks Nurul,
I'm going to guess the 8 of spades !

2
I just received my order today!
Very happy :D.
Got 3 gold seal bees, a fatboy V2, a pair of new fan backs and the entwined hearts gimmick :D.

I have a question about the gold seal bees. one of the gaff cards is a double backer with the gold back and then a silver/white back. Is there a white backed version of this deck and if so what's it called?
The other gaff is cool and I have no idea how to use it, but it's cool.
The stock of these bees is great, the only thing I'd change is I wish the back were borderless, I reckon that'd make for a beautiful deck

3
Lol what a coincidence Badpete9.
I JUST opened my coterie package half an hour ago.
I bought this cause I watched the video and thought it was a good looking trick. I don't think they tell you but the trick includes an easy handling and the more visual one shown in the video.
I've yet to have an opportunity to test this out though

4
Playing Card Plethora / Re: Playing Card Close-Ups - Guess the Deck
« on: January 12, 2014, 05:20:22 AM »
Is this the Deco bronze deck?
It kinda might look like the right colour scheme? I'm probably off though haha

5
Playing Card Plethora / Re: Ellusionist "Holiday Giveaway" - or not...
« on: January 11, 2014, 07:51:14 AM »
Mmm Sorry for being unclear Don.
I was referring to the separate tiered giveaways as firdawesome said.

I agree that raffle wasn't communicated well at all haha

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Playing Card Plethora / Re: Ellusionist "Holiday Giveaway" - or not...
« on: January 11, 2014, 04:49:21 AM »
While the raffle doesn't really seem random, let's all remember they did have the guaranteed giveaways which were nice.
T11s free spin a day was nice too of course

7
Playing Card Plethora / Re: Ellusionist "Holiday Giveaway" - or not...
« on: January 10, 2014, 07:10:31 PM »
Yeah I found that annoying too Don.
I found it especially annoying since I placed an order in November and should have gotten tickets in the 12000-15000 range; but since my order wasn't packed for over a month after I placed it, the tickets I'm probably going to get are 19000 +.
I say probably because I still haven't actually received that order yet... hahaha so I can't actually verify the numbers I got.

8
Playing Card Plethora / Re: Your Top 10 favorite Decks EVER, as of 1/9/14
« on: January 10, 2014, 11:27:20 AM »

I'm sure that I will kick myself later for leaving something off of the list, but that's a good start. I'm a collector with about 3,500 decks, and I buy an example of almost anything that's produced in modern decks, so I have a lot of different varieties but the ones listed above are the ones that are some of my favorites, and ones that I have a larger, some a much larger, quantity of.

And Tendril and Whispering Imps. And Crown Luxury. See, I knew that I'd forget! Narrowing the list to 10 (ish) is tough!

Wow 3500 decks :| is that 3500 different types (ie not counting duplicates) or is that 3500 decks?
How long have you been collecting?
I thought I was bad haha I think I have about 200 different types of decks, I haven't gotten around to catalogueing my collection yet

9
Playing Card Plethora / Re: Your Top 10 favorite Decks EVER, as of 1/9/14
« on: January 10, 2014, 10:52:15 AM »
In no particular order, these are my current top ten most used and admired:

- Seasons
- Fed52
- Whispering Imps
- Curator
- Virt
- Empire
- Exquisite
- Mana
- Artisan
- Actuators

There are of course many more, but those are my current top shelf. (and of course, I have secret things I've been playing with a lot lately... :) )

Great list! (Didn't put your own decks on that list out of modesty I'm guessing? Because I'm SURE that if I opened the tendril or aurum or deco decks I have sealed in my drawer they would be on my top ten!)
And haha you tease, secret things indeed.

10
Playing Card Plethora / Re: Would YOU try this with your playing cards?
« on: January 10, 2014, 10:43:22 AM »
It will be intersting to see the results on Air Cushion type.
I have never tested because i have no Air Cushion deck which has the same 'sandy dirt' feel as very old decks.

Only my fulton's chinatowns were starting to have that sandy dirt feeling.
The air cushion phoenixes aren't as bad... but they handle/fan clumpily like they're dirty. They don't really have the full sandy dirt feeling.
Dammit I'll go do the phoenix deck now - I could use a banana for a snack anyway :D

EDIT: Just did this with my phoenix 2010 air cushion deck... it improved it moderately.
I've attached before and after pics of my thumb fan with the deck.
(Now I'm not making any claim whatsoever to being expert/proficient at a thumb fan the photos are to try and illustrate the point)

I don't know how to post a picture followed by text haha so the first one is before banana - you can see there's a gap at the 7 of spades.

And after banana; smoother fan, less clumpy.

11
Playing Card Plethora / Re: Decks with complete customisation?
« on: January 10, 2014, 10:41:00 AM »

I'm surprised no one mentioned either the Imperials or ORNATE Decks!

Thanks, Randy

I don't have the ornate decks yet but they look great; I didn't know they were your work haha.

I recently opened a couple more decks and found a few more with complete customisation (although some are kinda borderline):
Majestic by Elite playing cards
Persian Empire deck by Cy (I know he got a lot of flak on this forum and there was a lot of scandal with the way he marketed/ran his initial campaign; but the cards themselves are quite nice and the borderless back design makes for a nice fan)
Grain back Deck by Ashley Acton (this isn't bicycle/USPCC)
League of Monsters by Cevin Cox (Again not USPCC but these cards handle amazingly, like really, really amazingly)
War of Kings by Andy Fischer (Again not a USPCC, and from looking at these forums seems the tucks on most people's decks got destroyed in transit)

12
I really like how the gold on the back design pops/contrasts with the blue.

As for comparing it with the fed 52s... there's no comparison there in my mind. I wouldn't think to put them in the same basket for comparison haha.

But yeah the preview page seems to have only the black one? Weirdly enough I usually like black but in this case I like the blue more :S.

13
Playing Card Plethora / Re: Would YOU try this with your playing cards?
« on: January 10, 2014, 10:11:46 AM »
Haha, I'm not the only mad man here anymore :)
You're probably right about the "oil" of the banana skin. The result is not perfect of course but it is noticeably better and even if it may not be very good for cards, it can transform a totally useless deck into a quite playable deck (at least to play poker with friends)
I have a Golden Nugget cleaned a few months ago and it is still far better than before and it remains playable. The 'oil' of the banana doesn't seem to become sticky or bad.
(and it doesn't smell at all of course)

Oh yeah - I agree with fred - No banana smell whatsoever.
I'm not sure how long the "cleaning" will last though but it seems pretty good to me.
Like I said in the next week or two I'll try this on a 2010 phoenix deck that was an air cushion finish.
I honestly do wonder what the banana method would do to a new magic finish deck hahaha. Maybe I'll try that next when I have time and more bananas - I have a few blue LTDs lying around to experiment on.

14
I was thinking these looked similar to the acryllic card clips that were on KS a while back.
For some reason this project didn't show up on my kickstarter :S. I've noticed these last few days that projects haven't been showing up on my kickstarter page and I'm wondering if it has something to do with me being in Australia -.- (just like ebay).
I think Ashley Acton did put out an update for the grain deck backers foreshadowing this project

15
Playing Card Plethora / Re: Your Top 10 favorite Decks EVER, as of 1/9/14
« on: January 10, 2014, 02:59:39 AM »
My top 10 (only including decks I have opened in my collection):
1: Uusi Blue bloods
2: Black JAQKs
3: Blue Monarchs
4: Purple artifice
5: Madison dealers
6: Black Arcane deck (first custom deck I got)
7: Ellusionist infinity (the 1st edition tuck is awesome but the cards for 1st and 2nd edition are the same)
8: Theory11 Medallions
9: Calaveras
10: Bet no one else will have this on their list: Cevin Cox's League of Monsters Playing cards
It's a recently funded kickstarter - it didn't fund as a USPCC project and I'm glad it didn't; whatever printer they used for these cards impressed the pants off me. Handling wise out of the box these cards are smooth to fan but sticky enough not to slide apart and drop to the floor when doing flourishes. The design isn't as beautiful as some of the other decks on my list but it gets a place in the top 10 pretty much entirely for it's handling.

That's only my list for opened decks. There are many, many, many other decks that look amazing but I haven't included in here because I either don't have them in my collection or I have them but haven't/can't bear to open them.

16
Playing Card Plethora / Re: Would YOU try this with your playing cards?
« on: January 10, 2014, 02:41:38 AM »
My answer to this topic's question: YES!
As soon as I got a banana I tried it - but not on an old vintage deck, I don't have any of those.
I tried this method on an old pack of fulton's chinatowns (I used this deck because it seemed to be the "dirtiest" deck in my collection).

After trying it out, I think there was a modest increase in performance of the cards - they still don't glide like a newly opened pack of magic finish USPCC cards, but I wasn't really expecting that.
I'm not so sure that this method "cleans" the cards because some of the cards I had had marks etc on them that weren't cleaned off by the banana but could be gently scratched off.
My guess would be that rubbing the banana on the cards bruises the banana skin (hence the colour change on the banana) and releases oils or something that act as another finish on the cards. I accidently rubbed a green bit of banana on a card's back and the card felt quite different, stickier, compared to the rest of the cards. Once I rubbed that bit with yellow banana the stickiness went away.

I do have a 2010 phoenix deck of cards with air cushion finish that fans like crap that I may try this banana method out on later, but for the moment... my arm is tired from cleaning the first pack -.-

17

I do like this deck, but I have to agree with Don about the faux aging. This is no where near as bad as the 1800's deck, but it is a repeating pattern. If someone wants to do the aging correctly. Every card should have a unique aging design. It should also be very subtle. Not like it was thrown in a mud puddle, and run over a thousand times.

With the Series 1800 deck, the whole theme was the aged look - back then, it was new and interesting.  Today, every other designer seems to be slapping it in there, sometimes for no good reason at all.  This is the prime example of the worst case.  There is no good idea whatsoever behind making this with an aged look.

Actually, while the idea of making every aged card unique is good on the surface, at the least you want the back to be a) the same and b) two-way (unless it's your intent to create a one-way back rather than simply an accident).

To be honest... I hadn't even noticed the faux aging :|.
I saw the concept and the pips and thought that was good enough for me haha.
Was it just me or did the 1800s perform poorly? I remember opening a pack a while ago and thinking they performed worse than standard bikes or were the 1800s victims of the USPCC shakedown period?

18
This reminds me of the black book of cards deck that funded awhile ago.
I love the idea of this deck. I don't plan on using it for playing cards so the similarity of the pip cards doesn't bother me.
I seem to like all the typography kind decks out there haha. They all feel artistic and original to me.

19
A Cellar of Fine Vintages / Re: Fake Jerry's Nuggets?
« on: January 07, 2014, 10:51:26 AM »
Agera94
First up I'd sincerely like to apologise if I've caused you any offence whatsoever by stating/implying your listing was fake.
I hope my words didn't offend you or anyone else; I reread my initial post; the message I meant to convey was: "are these real and how can one tell?"
The thing that set off a small alarm in my head was no mention of a CoA - I'm new to card collecting and thought that all the J Nuggs had to come with one - I'm glad that's cleared up :D.
I'm glad I'm a member of the discourse :D and even more glad that agera94 is.
Now to take a good hard look at the budget and see if these can be fit in yet hahaha :D.

Mind if I ask why you're selling them agera94? (Also, do you have more sales planned in the future? Because if so, I'd be a potential customer, I live in Queensland like you so not having to pay international shipping is a huge plus :D).

20
A Cellar of Fine Vintages / Fake Jerry's Nuggets?
« on: January 06, 2014, 12:19:05 PM »
Hey guys, wasn't sure where this post should go - I read the STISO possible frauds section but I don't think it fits those rules so I'm sticking it here now.

There's one seller on ebay with these two listings
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Jerrys-Nugget-blue-Opened-vintage-deck-great-condition-/291049743767?pt=AU_PaperPostcards&hash=item43c3eaa597&_uhb=1

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Jerrys-Nugget-blue-sealed-vintage-deck-great-condition-/291049744813?pt=AU_PaperPostcards&hash=item43c3eaa9ad&_uhb=1

Until I went to Hong Kong recently I didn't know about the existence of hi fidelity jerry's nuggets fakes and probably would have tried to bid on these thinking they were a good deal.
But thanks to the Discourse I have a suspicion this seller is seller counterfeit ones as authentic whether knowingly or otherwise.
Should all authentic Jerry's Nuggets come with a CoA or are those only the ones Lee Asher sells (at the moment the 2014 Lee Asher J Nuggs sale, and possibly 2015 sale are where I plan to get my Jerry's Nuggets, not eBay)?
And I'm not sure if this has been discussed in detail before but is there a way to tell authentic from counterfeit? Is there a particular batch number that isn't good/gets counterfeited a lot? I suspect Lee might have a bunch of knowledge on this topic?

Cheers guys, and I hope no one on these boards is being suckered on those listings (that is under my assumption that they're not authentic listings)

21
Haven't bothered to post anything in here, but this was a grab I am pretty pleased with. Found a poorly listed ebay auction, and was able to get these fellas for $170.
Which, interestingly enough, seems to have been sold by an Ellusionist employee's female mate.

Darn!! So you're the one that beat me in that auction.  The scarlet rounders are the ones I really wanted.

Scarlet rounders seem to be going for around $30-40 on ebay at the moment because of the recent cyber monday/black friday sales flooding the market :P. So they should be cheapest to pick up around this time. That said I don't think you'll ever beat THAT lot of rare decks - that's a bargain :D.

22
Magical Cardistry Bonanza / Re: slippery cards
« on: January 06, 2014, 10:15:19 AM »

That's your personal opinion and I'm cool with that.

I disagree with your Magic Finish statement though. I DO agree that Magic finish has rather generalised the FINISH on most cards. I still think though that there are so many more contributing factors that dictate how a USPCC deck is going to handle. The stock, for example, dramatically affects the handling. Almost every deck I've used, when put to use and under scrutiny, have handled and endured differently. I'm just against the ideology that in the USPCC Magic Finish is the only factor that will cause nearly any custom deck to handle well.

I think how a deck handles also depends on what kind of flourishing you're doing.
I'm no pro at cardistry/flourishes but honestly I'd prefer a thicker stocked wynn casino bee deck over a slippery USPCC/Ellusionist/Theory11 latest release for packet cuts (maybe when you get better at sybils and the WERM you won't drop cards from packets regardless of the slipperiness but at the moment I sometimes drop/lose packets when using smoother decks haha).
For fans and spreads - of course you can't go past the smoothness of them big companies' decks though.

23
Playing Card Plethora / Re: Best decks of cards under $15
« on: January 04, 2014, 11:04:47 AM »
Anything Uusi (Blue blood, bohemias Optiks, BB redux and pagans are what they're released to this point in time)
Encarded (they're all great but I think only the aurums and decos can be got for <$15)
Ellusionist: Love the artifice purples
Theory11: Monarches, medallions and Black JAQKs all the way
Thanks. I've been thinking about getting some artifice for some time now, as well as the BB Redux. Uusi's designs are awesome.

I'm not sure if this is true across the board, but my purple artifice seem to be printed on a different stock to my blue and green artifice.
The purple artifice back design is nicely imo and the stock is thinner/more springy. The blue and green have white borders around their backs and have a stiffer stock. This is all out of the packet mind you - I don't know what they're like if/when you break them in enough.

I'd offer to sell/trade you BB reduxes but the international shipping just wouldn't be worth it for you :(.

24
Magical Cardistry Bonanza / Re: slippery cards
« on: January 04, 2014, 10:20:51 AM »
thank you for the reply :)
I wanted to buy the Artisans from Theory 11 and the Bicycle Prestige deck soon, are that decks that are more slippery?

Yeah the artisans are a great deck :D and yeah they'll be slippery when you open them. I don't know how quickly they wear but I think they should be ok.
I don't have bicycle prestige cards so I can't say. They're the plastic cards aren't they? I suspect they would handle and wear completely differently
I'd recommend you get some standard bicycle decks if you don't already have them. They're good to practice with cause they're cheap and you don't feel bad if you drop/dirty/ruin them :D.

25
Playing Card Plethora / Re: Best decks of cards under $15
« on: January 04, 2014, 10:18:57 AM »

Thanks! I do mean decks that can be found <$15 that can also be found higher, as well as decks that are always lower.  :D

In that case:
Anything Uusi (Blue blood, bohemias Optiks, BB redux and pagans are what they're released to this point in time)
Encarded (they're all great but I think only the aurums and decos can be got for <$15)
Ellusionist: Love the artifice purples
Theory11: Monarches, medallions and Black JAQKs all the way

I don't know how you handle international - but the way I try to handle is by buying a large amount at once to reduce the shipping cost per deck and then opening them slowly haha. Ie I would probably buy 12 decks at once then open one a month rather than have to pay itnernational shipping 12 times. If I could jsut walk down to a local card store and find decks I would do that... but it's Australia we have no physical card stores haha XD.

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