GOLD Bicycle® Playing Cards (KS)

[Rob Wright]

GOLD Bicycle® Playing Cards

Project by Elite Playing Cards
7th project, $15,000 goal(Current $56,670), $10/1, $19/2


 

[Don Boyer]

Elite seems to be the unofficial home of the baroquely elaborate deck.  Practically all of their designs would fit in that category.  It's never been my cup of tea, but they seem to have a strong enough following that they could print almost anything, put the Bicycle name on it and it would sell in decent numbers.  It kinda makes me wonder why they keep coming back to Kickstarter in the first place - they have their audience and they should have the funds to self-produce by now, right?

[bhong]

Elite seems to be the unofficial home of the baroquely elaborate deck.  Practically all of their designs would fit in that category.  It's never been my cup of tea, but they seem to have a strong enough following that they could print almost anything, put the Bicycle name on it and it would sell in decent numbers.  It kinda makes me wonder why they keep coming back to Kickstarter in the first place - they have their audience and they should have the funds to self-produce by now, right?

It could be that Kickstarter guarantees a certainty of funds. Sort of a safety that you know the decks will move and it covers all of your printing cost already. I believe Erik Mana made a similiar statement on the Mana Playing Card FB page when a fan asked why he was using Kickstarter for the Mana v2.

[Don Boyer]

Elite seems to be the unofficial home of the baroquely elaborate deck.  Practically all of their designs would fit in that category.  It's never been my cup of tea, but they seem to have a strong enough following that they could print almost anything, put the Bicycle name on it and it would sell in decent numbers.  It kinda makes me wonder why they keep coming back to Kickstarter in the first place - they have their audience and they should have the funds to self-produce by now, right?

It could be that Kickstarter guarantees a certainty of funds. Sort of a safety that you know the decks will move and it covers all of your printing cost already. I believe Erik Mana made a similiar statement on the Mana Playing Card FB page when a fan asked why he was using Kickstarter for the Mana v2.

Every deck designer, good, bad or indifferent, seems to be flocking to Kickstarter now...

[bhong]

Elite seems to be the unofficial home of the baroquely elaborate deck.  Practically all of their designs would fit in that category.  It's never been my cup of tea, but they seem to have a strong enough following that they could print almost anything, put the Bicycle name on it and it would sell in decent numbers.  It kinda makes me wonder why they keep coming back to Kickstarter in the first place - they have their audience and they should have the funds to self-produce by now, right?

It could be that Kickstarter guarantees a certainty of funds. Sort of a safety that you know the decks will move and it covers all of your printing cost already. I believe Erik Mana made a similiar statement on the Mana Playing Card FB page when a fan asked why he was using Kickstarter for the Mana v2.

Every deck designer, good, bad or indifferent, seems to be flocking to Kickstarter now...

I know this is going way off topic, but I think it'll be the day if Ellusionist, Theory11 or Dan & Dave start up a Kickstarter deck.

[Rob Wright]

Elite seems to be the unofficial home of the baroquely elaborate deck.  Practically all of their designs would fit in that category.  It's never been my cup of tea, but they seem to have a strong enough following that they could print almost anything, put the Bicycle name on it and it would sell in decent numbers.  It kinda makes me wonder why they keep coming back to Kickstarter in the first place - they have their audience and they should have the funds to self-produce by now, right?

It could be that Kickstarter guarantees a certainty of funds. Sort of a safety that you know the decks will move and it covers all of your printing cost already. I believe Erik Mana made a similiar statement on the Mana Playing Card FB page when a fan asked why he was using Kickstarter for the Mana v2.

Every deck designer, good, bad or indifferent, seems to be flocking to Kickstarter now...

There over 56k now. With the pricing discount they would get. they could order 20,000 decks for under 30K I would think. That leaves 26k for all the other swag and shipping. This project will use 3-4,000. the rest is all gravy to sell on there site

[BiggerDee]

Something about this design struck a chord with me, and I am in big on this project. For the first time ever in any of my 80+ KS projects backed, I'm also in for a big non-card add-on. I like the Elite designs, but this one "pops" in a big way.

[Justin O.]

Just got my Elite Gold's in the mail and am sad to say they are a radical
Disappointment. The stock is clearly USPCC's lowest grade; the cards feel flimsy and the edges are rough. The gradient on the faces of the cards only prove to make the deck look cheap and the backs are underwhelming and dull. The decks ce with a garishly yellow gold aluminum AoS that is not even the same dimensions of the playing cards and looks gimmicky. The tucks are niceish, if a little plain, and I am sad that they didn't opt for embossing.

All in all I will probably pass on elite decks unless they really up their game. Baroque, filigreed designs can be done right. But Elite is missing the mark. 

[BiggerDee]

I hate to hear that. I haven't received mine yet, but yours if the first negative opinion of them. Everything else that I have read has been very positive.

[S. Carey]

Care to post pics?

[Justin O.]

I couldn't post better pictures than you see above. I suppose it speaks well if I am the only person that doesn't seem impressed.

[rousselle]

Add me to the list of underwhelmed. The design is fine, and the tuck is good as far as it goes, but while the backs appear to be kinda-sorta what USPCC passes for "metallic ink", it's really not all that shiny (which is what *I* want to see in a metallic ink), and the courts, while elegantly designed, miss the pop that a suitable metallic or foil could have brought.

I'm not radically disappointed, but... also, not impressed enough to sign up for another.

[DarkDerp]

I couldn't post better pictures than you see above. I suppose it speaks well if I am the only person that doesn't seem impressed.

 I think that's why photos are being requested. To show the  difference between promotional and real world. 

[S. Carey]

Exactly.

I am also part of a kickstarter group on Facebook and the following review was posted by another member:

My GOLD deck arrived. A lot of things to say about it.

The aluminum ace is slightly a letdown as the size and dimension of the aluminum and the ace artwork are different. The artwork is stretched lengthwise on both sides. If the aluminum plate was the same size as the playing cards themselves, this problem wouldn't have happened. The coin looks really nice, but the appearance looks like those of a plastic coin rather than a metal coin. You can tell that it is not a plastic coin as it is slightly heavy. The dice are pretty nice, the white dice are not quite well made as there are paint smear on the gold spade pip and you can't really see the design of the spade against white. The black and gold dice looks really good, if only they just stick with black and gold like their deck tuck box.

I'm not quite going to open a deck as these are no longer going to be printed again. Unless the creators decide to do a reprint. Or someone decide to sell the decks on Ebay.

[Don Boyer]

Exactly.

I am also part of a kickstarter group on Facebook and the following review was posted by another member:

My GOLD deck arrived. A lot of things to say about it.

The aluminum ace is slightly a letdown as the size and dimension of the aluminum and the ace artwork are different. The artwork is stretched lengthwise on both sides. If the aluminum plate was the same size as the playing cards themselves, this problem wouldn't have happened. The coin looks really nice, but the appearance looks like those of a plastic coin rather than a metal coin. You can tell that it is not a plastic coin as it is slightly heavy. The dice are pretty nice, the white dice are not quite well made as there are paint smear on the gold spade pip and you can't really see the design of the spade against white. The black and gold dice looks really good, if only they just stick with black and gold like their deck tuck box.

I'm not quite going to open a deck as these are no longer going to be printed again. Unless the creators decide to do a reprint. Or someone decide to sell the decks on Ebay.

It's true he had a lot to say about it - but NONE of it was actually about the cards!  He hasn't even opened a pack by his own admission.  It's more of a review of the Kickstarter swag than anything else.

[ruicorreia]

   I've received my decks yesterday. And I've opened one of them, of course.

   As anything in this world, there are good and bad things about this deck.

   The good: they are very nice looking. We can see that there is good work done on the design of the cards. And if we consider the amount of crappy decks lately on Kickstarter, this is not one of them. The quantity of details and the colours used are also positive.

   The bad: although the careful design, it's like someone already said it: the themes of this deck and the previous decks of Elite are now repetitive (with the exception of the Evolution deck). It would be nice that Elite could think more outside this thematic, because it's proved, by the Evolution deck, that they can do really nice and original decks.

   But, that's only my opinion.

[rousselle]

Y'all requested photos, so a couple days ago, I snapped a bunch of photos using my trusty phone camera... and then my son texted me, "Hey, Magic Orthodoxy reviewed this deck called 'Gold' that you should check out." (My boy is starting to catch on to my obsession.)

Anyway, no point in me uploading the photos; David at Magic Orthodoxy gives you a pretty good view of what the cards look like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-bYdfjhy5A

[BiggerDee]

That's good review and a great look at the cards. Well, I still really, really like them. Mind you, I love the similarity of theme in all of Elite's decks, and have pledged big on all of their projects, but I can definitely understand where folks can be getting tired of the similar/repetitive theme, especially if you're not ultra fond of it in the first place. I can totally understand that. I guess that I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum in that regard, but it's just personal opinion. I'm very anxious to get my pledge items! Unfortunately, based on what I pledged for, I have a feeling that mine will go out towards the end of the shipments, so I'll have to wait that much longer.

[Don Boyer]

I watched the review as well.  For someone looking at it with fresh eyes, I thought it was a nice deck, but I also thought it was a little flawed - the border mismatch thing did it for me.  The faces sure looked attractive.

Again, as I stated before, I was never a huge fan of the Elite signature deck style to start with, so I don't have all their earlier decks to compare them to.  A newbie collector might find them interesting, but an experienced Elite collector - I can easily see where they'd think it was repetitive or boring.

[Justin O.]

Looks like a plethora of examples were posted before I got back here to upload. That video is a good representation of the cards, the magnificently uninspired baroque imagery that Elite has made their name with holds up well in the video.

I still cant get behind the mustard yellow backs, they don't really read as gold to me in any way but the most casual use of the word 'gold' and I really don't like that the right corner of all of the courts is filled in with a gradient. Another big problem I have with the deck, probably my biggest problem, is the broader use of gradients in general, most specifically the tops and bottoms of the boarders where they lighten the boarder from a caramel brown to a bright yellow. I imagine this was done to give the illusion of light relecting off a metallic surface but to me this just looks cheap. Throughout the Kickstarter I thought this was just a digital representation of them using metallic inks, as they have the backs using the same gradient in the photos and made them look like they would shine brilliantly. but they don't shine at all, I don't really see how this is a foil ink, the backs treat light the same way that any of my other decks do.

Really I think if Elite had just taken all of the gradients out of the deck entirely it would have looked a lot cleaner and much more 'elite'. Without better stock, tuck embossing, and the amount of design shortcuts taken on this deck it doesn't feel Elite; to me it looks cheap and tacky. Which Gold absolutely can sometimes, so I guess they are still on point.

I don't mean to be profoundly negative, but sometimes the only way to get negativity out is to vent it with people that can understand your position, regardless of whether they agree or not. So you guys are my sounding board for my disappointment with Elite and this deck..

[Don Boyer]

There is no "foil ink," just metallic ink!  I have seen gold foil used on at least one deck, but the process for using it is not simple by any means.  Don't ask which deck - it's not in release.  It's used far more often on tuck boxes.

Most designers really drop the ball when it comes to metallic inks, gold in particular.  Gold ink NEVER looks as shiny on pasteboard as it does on your monitor.  It really is more of a mustard yellow-brown, like Gulden's Deli-Style mustard.  It's actually somewhat dark, and shows up best when displayed against a light or white background.  Silver can work better on dark backgrounds, though it, too, is never as shiny on the card as on the screen.  Silver on white can be hard to distinguish - Lance Miller's Bicycle Gargoyles is a beautiful deck but in the wrong light becomes utterly unreadable, the metallic silver ink having a nearly-identical reflectivity to the white background of the pasteboard.

Metallic inks I think are better used in more subtle ways.  The best example that comes to mind is the Sliver Split Spades.  Now, we've all seen decks with metallic red ink for the reds, but it always looked odd to me when the blacks are done in black ink, totally flat and lifeless in comparison.  But Mark Stutzman made a fantastic choice in doing what appears to be overprinting the black pips with a scattering of gold ink.  Suddenly the black cards aren't so flat and lifeless anymore.  It was an inspired idea, really.  The backs being all silver on white makes them a little tough to see in bright light, but they're the backs, so one doesn't worry so much about it when using such a deck.

And I think that's enough from me on the topic of metallic inks!