Erdnase 216 "Squeezers"

[Don Boyer]

The back of my tuck box isn't damaged at all and the imagery looks fine as well. What gets me is that the spot cards and the courts seem to be in bad shape. What I mean by that is the indices are not all the same size and some seem to be "fuzzy" as if the printing was done strange. And the courts have some streaking of color on them. It seems like quality wasn't so good on the printing. Unless that's an "aged" look to relate back to Erdnase. The finish is pretty cool though.

I believe they were looking for the old style of printing.  The ink was applied less than perfectly on the older machines.  I believe the cards were made from direct scans of the original deck.  I don't remember seeing streaking of color, though.  Are you referring to the hair, where there's some spots that didn't get inked?  That, too, I think is an attempt at making the cards look as close to the originals as possible.  But I guess I could ask Bill Kalush the next time we speak.

[Michael]

The back of my tuck box isn't damaged at all and the imagery looks fine as well. What gets me is that the spot cards and the courts seem to be in bad shape. What I mean by that is the indices are not all the same size and some seem to be "fuzzy" as if the printing was done strange. And the courts have some streaking of color on them. It seems like quality wasn't so good on the printing. Unless that's an "aged" look to relate back to Erdnase. The finish is pretty cool though.

I believe they were looking for the old style of printing.  The ink was applied less than perfectly on the older machines.  I believe the cards were made from direct scans of the original deck.  I don't remember seeing streaking of color, though.  Are you referring to the hair, where there's some spots that didn't get inked?  That, too, I think is an attempt at making the cards look as close to the originals as possible.  But I guess I could ask Bill Kalush the next time we speak.

I realized after the fact that streaking is probably not the right term. Embarrassing seeing as my father used to work for Xerox for a while so these terms are what I heard a lot back in the day. But I was referring to the uneven printing on some of the courts that produce strips of lighter coloration. But now that I've had more time to look at them, I can see how this resembles an "aged" deck.

I actually don't mind that as much, especially if the images are from the direct scans of the original deck. The finish is super slippery though, much more so than magic finish. It's taking me a bit to get used to.

[Don Boyer]

I realized after the fact that streaking is probably not the right term. Embarrassing seeing as my father used to work for Xerox for a while so these terms are what I heard a lot back in the day. But I was referring to the uneven printing on some of the courts that produce strips of lighter coloration. But now that I've had more time to look at them, I can see how this resembles an "aged" deck.

I actually don't mind that as much, especially if the images are from the direct scans of the original deck. The finish is super slippery though, much more so than magic finish. It's taking me a bit to get used to.

That finish is a couple of years in the making, something Kalush was experimenting with.

I'm sure the scans were touched up a little, to remove most of the effects of aging and wear.  The original deck isn't so bright a white in the background.  But with a clean-up process on a deck's images, if you want to make them appear authentic to the era, you have to draw a line somewhere.  Think of it like using a pencil eraser to clean up a penciled sketch made by a different artist - remove too much and you're no longer cleaning, you're altering the art to a different appearance.  It's why art restoration is as much artistic as it is technical and scientific.

[Michael]

The more I play with these cards the more I like the finish. It isn't too slippery anymore but maybe that is because I'm used to it more.

I get your point though about the image clean up. Finding that perfect like between cleaning enough and too much is hard. I still feel it looks a little unfinished or lower quality but I guess I'm not used to handling vintage decks.

[Rob Wright]

Based on a conversation with Don over in the deck battles, I decided to order a couple decks. First thing I noticed was no tax stamp/seal. I went to the CARC website, and the picture of the original had a stamp. Not a big deal to me, but kind of surprised considering how much work went into replicating the original. Opened the deck. Ultra thin, ultra smooth, and ultra slick. I noticed they rattled in the box. 54 cards in a 56 card box is part of it I think. I stacked the 216s against a deck of Rider Backs. the 54 216s were equal to 52 Rider Backs. If I had to compare them to another deck. I would say a thin cheap Chinese deck, but in a good way.
Now that these have been out a few months. have you guys been using these, and what do you think?