I meant for the Jerry's 
S you don't know them personally, but you know of them...?
I doubt that's the term they'd use for themselves, but yes, there are a small number of people who bought decent to hefty supplies of JN "souvenir" decks, never used on the tables despite being very well made.
At the current rate of resell the rarity of jerry nuggets is really called into question. So far 144 x 3 decks have been released by Lee, and we know Dan and Dave have quite a few as well.
Three gross? That's a drop in the bucket. Remember, these were made in the 1970s, sat in storage for a number of years, then sold in the souvenir shop for 50c a pack! By the time they sold out a couple of decades later, they were only $2 a pack.
This was a HUGE print run to have lasted that long even without some people swooping in and purchasing in large quantities.
I don't doubt that there are thousands of them. They were made for a Vegas casino after all, they wouldnt print 500. however, how many are sealed or in good shape after 40+ years is a different question.
More than you'd think, actually. As I said above, most of the decks sat in storage. The casino was probably tickled pink to get rid of these cards in bulk. Storage costs money. Though looking at the market for this deck now, I'm sure someone in their sales department is kicking themselves in the ass. But that market would probably not exist were it not being spurred along by collectors in the first place.
I'd certainly accept one as a gift, but I don't think I'd ever actually buy one unless the market for them fell through the floor and hit the bargain-basement concrete.
Exactly, the issue compounding that is of those thousands practically none were used by the casinos due to the back
It's not just "practically none" that were used, it's EXACTLY none. It's unsure as to whether these were even intended for table play in the first place. If I had to guess, I'd say it was, considering how long they were selling it for - it implies they were buying in huge numbers, and decks bought in those numbers are usually destined for the tables. There are none of these decks in a canceled state, which I think is required by law in Nevada for any table-used deck, not to mention it's a prudent business practice to keep a current design out of the public's hands unless it was canceled.
Maybe, like a lot of people at the time, they thought they were kind of garish and ugly but didn't realize this until after the order was made and done. They really aren't attractive - many say they think they are, but I believe they're attracted to the "fetishizing" of this deck in the community rather than the alleged beauty of the backs and they simply equate that fetish aspect with beauty. There are things in the rubber fetish community that they would call gorgeous but you'd probably run from them screaming...
I miss when they were simply drilling a single hole through the decks to cancel them rather than sawing off the corners - those cuts never come out evenly.
The one thing that made the deck popular with magicians and cardists was simply the handling and durability. It's why many magicians and cardists use them in their videos. After that, there was a demand among that segment of the community. At some point, before prices blew up like an atom bomb, some shrewd people thought to buy in bulk, thus creating a serious supply shortage. That's when the collectors pounced and the single-deck price went supernova. How many of this deck actually remain in exist is totally unknown - could be a few gross, could be in the tens or hundreds of thousands. But I'd call it safe to say that there are far more of these decks out there than any 5,000-deck print run.
In other words, I believe the shortage is an artificial one.
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