I just saw a picture of the new Studs that are blue that aren't Jumbo Index. I'll run by Walgreens again soon. They might also have red jumbo.
Also, I was just thinking about the brass comment above. I think you and I, Don, made the same mistake independently when we thought "Brass," but should have been thinking "Bronze." Gold, Silver, Copper, Bronze.
OK, so I went to the local Walgreens and picked up the gold.
Bad news... They're not all that new, really!
Here's the skinny.
When they first came out, Steam Punks were released in "Copper" as a T11 deck. Shortly thereafter, USPC was selling a "Brass version - it was widely considered inferior. The Copper had an embossed box, deeper shading for the reds on the faces, two identical jokers with indices reading "JOKER" printed vertically, a T11 ad card (it was the modern-looking "11" in a circle logo) and a double backer. The Brass was unembossed, had standard Bicycle reds on the faces, the joker indices had the overlapping "U" and "S", one of the jokers was a guarantee joker, they had a Bicycle ad card and a blank facer. The card backs were identical in color. In addition, the Ace of Spades on the Brass version had a USPC production code indicating it was made in the 48th week of 2011 while the Copper version had no code.
After some months, a "Silver Steampunk" edition came out simultaneously from T11 and USPC. This was sort of a mix of the two versions: embossed, metallic box (the others were matte-finished); darker reds; non-identical jokers (one was a guarantee joker) with the US index; a double backer; a Bicycle ad card and a production code on the AoS indicating it was printed on the 17th week of 2012. The Silver deck had a grayscale version of the card back and the Jokers had grayscale artwork.
There may have been subsequent printings of any of those three decks, so your mileage may vary!
The Gold deck is very, very similar to the Copper. First thing I noticed was the copyright of 2017 on the box bottom - and it is embossed and metallic. The back color scheme is pretty much identical to the Copper and Brass decks, maybe with a slight variation that can be chalked up to a ink mismatch that's off by perhaps a shade or two at most. It looks nearly identical to the Copper release with two key differences: the ad card is the more current version of T11's ad card with their newest logo (it looks vaguely like a seal you might find on currency, with a ribbon decorated with Roman numerals of 8, 31, 2007 and 11 - I'm assuming the company's eleven founding artists opened for business on August 31, 2007) and the Ace of Spades has a production code indicating manufacture on the 31st week of this year (2017).
If you boil it down to "brass tacks," the Gold box is simply a fusion of the better elements of the three decks and in appearance, ad card and AoS code notwithstanding, is identical inside the box to the original Copper release.
Oh, and the deck seals! Nearly forgot... Copper had none. Brass had a pale gold USPC seal, white spade outline and border, black lettering. Silver had none. Gold has a standard black USPC seal.
As far as Studs... They were listed on the product display hooks with a SKU and a price, but there were none in stock. I'll have to keep my eyes out. The price cards mentioned that the standard index version comes in red and blue and that there's a jumbo index version but made no mention of the jumbo index version's color variety - I'm assuming it's still red and blue. So no, they didn't make the same blunder with the revived Studs as they did with the Play-Rights.
Are these the same quality as the older runs? I got a little bummed out the other day when I picked up a set of Aurora bikes at Walgreens that were not as nice (no metallic inks), as the older cards I have seen on the 'nets. I scooped up the emotions deck a few weeks ago- pretty fun deck!
Related note- have you seen the new Barnes and Noble exclusive Nationals (theory 11)
? (Green and red). I'm wondering if they are as nice as the original blackies.
It's not unheard of for a deck producer to release a less-spiffy version of a deck either as a second printing or as a mass-production release. Sounds like that was the case with the Bicycle Aurora - I saw it on the shelf at my Walgreens, as well as Bicycle Emotions and Bicycle Emoji, but didn't buy them.
Haven't seen green or red Nationals yet, despite going to B&N about two or three weeks ago. Will have to check again. It's not impossible that it's just the boxes that are differently-colored, not the cards - Bicycle US Presidents comes to mind... We'll see.
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