I don't really care if you smoke weed or if you don't like drugs or whatever. Just here me out.

Hemp paper was used to make the Gutenberg Bible. Hemp paper was used to write the first two drafts of the Declaration of Independence. Hemp, the stalk of the plant that has been the center of the drug war for a century, is finally reaching a point where it can have an impact.

I want to ask what you all think about the idea of taking hemp paper, with fibers that are noticeably stronger and longer lasting than normal paper from trees, and using them as part of card stock. Has anyone thought about the potential use it would have? Not only is it a negative carbon footprint, but it also offers for the potential to control the process of playing card manufacturing even further.

Think about it. With recent developments, paper thickness has become a varying degree to such an extent that you can get custom made Bees with the thickness of Bikes, and vice versa.

So I ask, is this a future that we could see?

Sorry for such a late reply.

I remember that Skull & Bones deck. The Ivory finish (god help us find some more Ivory in the future) was the first time I had felt a smooth playing card and It was marvelous. I wish I had had more money to invest in buying more, but alas, being 13 has its downside.

Now that I think about it, it makes sense. A lot of the decisions that have been made by the USPCC have been rather atrocious.

Steamboats, Studs, Arrcos, and even Hoyle and Maverick cards are all but lost, too expensive, or just plain crap. Even the stock from Bicycle has suffered, with some brand new decks from Walmart coming out of the box with a click, and edges so rough, I could shave with them.

It's weird. I found an old Rider back in my house from when I was really young, and I noticed the registration was perfect in comparison to the new decks I would buy. And it actually ended up infuriating me because it was the first moment I realized that playing cards were taking a downturn. Then, Conjuring Arts comes out with the tan and green Bee Erdnase Squeezers (I actually liked the blue color that the century old deck had), and then it came out with the Professionals and Acorns and other Erdnase decks, and it felt like some civility had returned to the quality of what playing cards should feel like.

Now hearing of the crap that Bill had to go through, I actually respect his decision. He gave up a lot with those original decks that he produced, and admittedly, I would have liked for him to reproduce another run of Arrco Tahoes, but he's doing his own thing. I'm actually trying to work on a workers design based on the Arrco Tahoe, and I plan on sending it through the EPCC. I love playing cards, and to hear that someone like Bill Kalush took a stand for us is really encouraging.

I'm a magician that loves playing cards. They're some of my favorite things to use when doing magic, and there's often something about a great deck of cards that makes you want to practice and use them that's indescribable.

Yet, today's market doesn't offer that quality you once had in the days of Vernon and Miller.

Which is why I'm so curious as to why Conjuring Arts stopped making decks through USPCC.

Red, Green, Black Acorn Backs, with the choice of Cambric and Ivory (my personal favorite being Ivory), along with amazing cards like the Erdnase 216s, Professional Bicycles, and the original Skull & Bones, Conjuring Arts was a powerhouse in pushing out great decks. Bill Kalush was a monster with his releases.

So why did they stop? Those decks were incredible. The Professional Bikes makes sense, as Richard Turner took over that market with a cheaper deck, but those other decks were great. I'm sure they could have done more runs of those decks and they would have sold out. Even decks like the Exquisite Bolds were groundbreaking when they came out.

I know that CA works a lot with ECC and Legends, and a lot of their new decks are great (lookin at you Superior Brand), but those old decks.....I miss them.

Anybody else feel the same way? Anyone know what happened? Thanks ahead of time.

Quote from: zincy7 on March 19, 2017, 10:45:16 AM

I have been saving up literally hundreds of dollars to buy the Arrco Tahoe reprints they were selling, and I just searched them and their website isn't showing up. Does someone know something I don't?

I'm asking because I've wanted the Tahoe Black and White decks for years now, and being a 15 with no job didnt really help.  Now that I have one, I've been wanting to buy their stock of Tahoes for myself, as well as the other decks they had to offer.

Can anyone help me out here?

DealingDeuces was a rather expensive place to buy cards for the most part.  He fell into disrepute over a scandal, which possibly cost him enough of his business to cause him to fold shop.

He were looking for ways to inflate prices on some of his decks.  One method he used was to foil wrap his Arrco Tahoe reprints and give them serially-numbered seals, making them look like some kind of factory-issued set - they were the same decks one could purchase individually for significantly less money.

But what really got him in hot water was when he was taking "Ace Fulton" decks made by Dan and Dave Buck, wrapping them in gold foil and applying some kind of clear sticker to the foil with the "Ace Fulton's Casino" logo on it and charging a small fortune for them.  People were freaking out, trying to find out if, as was claimed by Dealing Deuces, it was some kind of special edition that wasn't previous available from the Bucks, but one of the Bucks came out publicly and said they never made them in that way - it quickly became clear to collectors that he was trying to re-wrap the decks to make them appear to be far more valuable than they actually were.

Almost immediately after that happened, he stopped posting to his account here on this forum and wasn't heard from again.  People started doubting the veracity of a lot of his claims in regard to the very expensive collectible decks he was offering for sale on his site - I recall a casino deck he was selling that was in the four figures, royally expensive, making it supposedly more valuable than a "Holy Grail" deck like the original Bicycle War Series from 1918.  It would appear that the scandal cast a long-enough shadow on his business that it tanked.

Here's the topic where the whole thing came out in the open.  http://www.playingcardforum.com/index.php?topic=3543.0

Thanks so much for the thorough response Don. You're probably my favorite playing card enthusiast cuz you really have your head in this game. I personally loved the Arrco Tahoe reprints, and I was hoping to snag some old school magic castle decks from that website, but knowing whats been going on, it seems as though DealingDeuces really lost its credibility on this one.