Ok, so this is really Air Flow Finish?
It is the current USPCC "Air Flow Finish"
The next upgrade would be to go to the BEE CASINO grade stock ( which is what Ellusionist like to use )
If the pledges go high enough , this is an option I might explore.
Read the Ellusionist article and it best details the meanings and process for the different finish names with USPCC cards. Much of the information that is out there is misquoted or misunderstood.
The Ellusionist folks know there stuff best.
The article you quoted is pretty well out of date. The person who wrote it no longer works at Ellusionist. I've spoken with him on the phone; he's a nice guy.
I've written a few posts about this topic, culled from research as well as discussing it with the actual people who make decks - some of whom have indeed been on the factory floor.
As of right now, there are exactly two finishes being produced for USPC decks: "standard" and "Magic Finish". "Standard" is called different things on different cards: Ivory, Air Cushion, Cambric, Linoid, etc. "Magic Finish" is commonly called Magic Finish, but there are variances from this: Ellusionist called it by its original code name before it went into wide production, which is Performance Finish. The New York Magic Project used it on their white Arrco decks and called it "Premium Finish". In some cases, like the early "transition" decks from the time when Ellusionist was converting all their decks to Performance Coating, many still bore the "Air Cushion" name, and some were never made in Air Cushion, having gone straight from Air-Flow to Performance Coating. (Specifically, there were many decks that existed in large quantities of the original Air-Flow Finish that didn't completely sell out until after the transition, thus they never appeared as Air-Cushion - one example that comes to mind are the red and blue Bicycle Masters.) Another instance of Magic Finish going by another name was the CARC release of black-and-silver Acorn Back Erdnase Bee decks. Because they like their decks to appear like old-time decks, they kept the traditional old-time names for the finish - Ivory on smooth decks, Cambric on textured decks - but because of the silver ink in that deck, the actual finish used was Magic Finish. Magic Finish was practically made for decks with metallic inks or high ink saturation to allow them smoother performance characteristics.
There is a third, experimental finish. So far, the only deck made with it was the Vortex deck, and only limited quantities of that whole print run had it, maybe 10%. But it's still an experimental finish, not being made widely available without further testing.
As far as that old stuff about web press versus sheet-fed press, it's ridiculous. The web press is used for printing decks in large quantities, period. Anything they mass produce in the tens of thousands will go on the web press. It used to be the preferred press at the old Cincinnati plant, but this had a lot to do with the fact that the sheet-fed press there was a dinosaur being held together with spit, chewing gum and prayers. But it was also the press used for any short-run deck, so many custom decks did get the sheet-fed process. Ellusionist usually orders LARGE quantities of their decks, so they get the web press. In the newer Erlanger plant, the sheet-fed press is fantastic, and some might even argue that it's better than the web press! It's produced such complex and difficult-to-make decks as the Tendril and the Seasons decks. I have that knowledge from a prominent magician and friend who's been at the plant in both locations on more than one occasion - his decks are produced by a USPC subsidiary company overseas.
The USPC is known for having a fairly fluid set of rules for how things get done and what can and can't be done. There was a period of time where any deck released under the Bicycle name had to be called "Air Cushion" finish, regardless of what the actual finish was. But that time has passed - the Bicycle decks made by Ellusionist today say "Performance Coating" and not "Air Cushion Finish" on them. Anything without the Bicycle brand could be named whatever the hell the designer wanted, as long as he was paying for it.
And as far as textured finishes versus smooth ones - at one time in history, just as there used to be different finishes on different brands, there used to be cotton rollers that "applied" the textured coating to textured decks. Those rollers have long been replaced with smooth, steel models, and any texture or lack thereof on a deck's surface isn't done in the finish - it's done on the paper at the time it's being pressed together into the "graphite and glue sandwich" that modern playing cards are made with. Two rolls of paper enter, glue is applied to make them adhere to each other and the glue itself is infused with graphite to keep cards from being translucent and thus easily read through the back if there was a strong enough light source in the right place. As this sandwich is being flattened, that's when the textured surface is (or isn't) added.
Oh, you mentioned "Air Flow Finish" and Bee Casino stock as an "upgrade". The two are completely UNRELATED to each other. The first is a finish, the second is a stock (paper) that the finish eventually gets applied to. One is not an upgrade of the other, just like apples aren't an upgrade from steak. At present, they have four stocks: Bicycle, Aristocrat, Bee and Bee Casino, listed in approximate order of thickness and grade. Don't even get me started about variances in the stock...
I'm not trying to belittle you, because quite frankly, as much as we all love USPC products, they can be more than a little opaque to their clients, particularly in the Customs division. And the consumers? Well, they're totally in the dark, unless they do the searching people like some of us here have done. But if you're going to be in the business of making playing cards, it's best to know what you're getting into and how things get done at the print shop.
