How come the Ohio Limited edition Vintage Series reprint decks aren't dated on the AoS? They have a code, but it doesn't belong with the date (mine says 1613)
Are those numbers to the LEFT of the letter, or to the RIGHT? The numbers to the LEFT of the letter would reveal the week and year of manufacture, while the numbers to the RIGHT would reveal the lot number of the print run and isn't really of use to anyone outside of USPC. Older Ace of Spades letter codes have NO digits to the left of the letter, making them only able to be pinpointed to the year of manufacture and not any smaller time units. Unless of course you had the records at USPC indicating which lots were printed when.
I'd have to disagree about Erlanger being higher quality. I think the stock was much snappier from Ohio, as well as all the finishes being better. All my Kentucky decks have rougher edges than my Ohio decks too.
Any Erlanger decks manufactured in 2011 and 2012 are actually of better quality than the Ohio printings because more modern equipment was in place and the "shakedown" period was over. Decks made in those years (AoS letter codes of N for '11 and R for '12) no longer have the rough edges that the Kentucky-made decks from 2009 (letter code L) and 2010 (letter code M) tended to have.
And in regard to the boxes, there's no guarantee that a black-sealed box marked "Cincinnati" has Cincinnati-made cards in it. Blue seal decks were made before the transition to Kentucky, but black seal decks have roughly even odds of having been made in Erlanger for 2009 and for some brands, 2010. They had the boxes pre-printed before the move and obviously didn't want to waste them, since they did cost money to make in the first place. Only the guarantee Joker will tell you for certain what plant made the deck.
Another question: I have a deck of maroon Rider backs. Jokers and box say they are made in Ohio. The code on the AoS says "4806". Was it made in 2006?
If "4806" appears to the LEFT of the letter code, and the letter in the code is "H", then it was made in the 48th week of 2006, putting it at early December of that year.
Another thing to bear in mind is that for customized decks, often the letter code isn't used at all - the maroon Rider Backs (also called "burgundy" by some) were a private order. That deck and the yellow Rider Backs were printed for The Bond Agency, a.k.a. The Card Collector, doing business at cards4magic.co.uk. If you go over the T11, E, D&D, Blaine, TBC/HOPC and other privately-designed and privately-ordered decks, they usually do not have AoS codes. The T11 "brass" version of the Steam Punk deck had no letter code, but the USPC "copper" version does (I believe it was "N", but late in the year, as the deck was released January of this year). I have no idea what the "silver" USPC version will have, but if forced to guess, I'd say it'll have a letter code, that code being "R".
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