Bicycle Skull Limited Edition Color Playing Cards Decks (KS)

[Rob Wright]

Bicycle Skull Limited Edition Color Playing Cards Decks

by PlayingCardsDotNet

A new take on the Bicycle Skull Deck with Orange and Silver color options.


This design was taken from a historic plate in the Bicycle® Brand archives, then updated for the 21st century. In collaboration with USPCC we bring you a new take on this deck of playing cards, with new colors, dark face cards, courts, & with metallic ink on the silver deck.

Choose from Limited Edition Orange or Limited Edition Silver Metallic Ink playing cards (Just like Ellusionist® Tally-Ho Printing), or pick up one of each!

Only 2500 of each playing cards deck will be printed if we reach our funding goal.

[Don Boyer]

So let me get this straight...

Bill Kalush find an old USPC deck back that hasn't seen the light of day in a century, cleans it up and creates his Bicycle Professional Skull and Bones Backs.

USPC decides to screw him over by making an inferior version of the deck as the "Bicycle Skull" deck.

And now this guy wants to dilute the product even further by making an even more inferior product - a black and monochrome version of the same design, where all the suits are a single color in each deck.

Am I the only one in the room who thinks that this is a dumb idea based on a dumb idea?

[Rob Wright]

So let me get this straight...

Bill Kalush find an old USPC deck back that hasn't seen the light of day in a century, cleans it up and creates his Bicycle Professional Skull and Bones Backs.

USPC decides to screw him over by making an inferior version of the deck as the "Bicycle Skull" deck.

And now this guy wants to dilute the product even further by making an even more inferior product - a black and monochrome version of the same design, where all the suits are a single color in each deck.

Am I the only one in the room who thinks that this is a dumb idea based on a dumb idea?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't playingcards.net and Gamblers warehouse the same thing? So I guess now they are producing cards under 2 different names on KS 

And they did this on the Occults project


 

It kind of puts me off that the are doing a recolor of someone else's work, and putting it out as there own.  For me, this is not what KS is about.

[Sher143]

Playingcardsdotnet and Gambler's Warehouse is the same. When asked why they launched this on a separate account,  they stated that the Gambler's Warehouse account is for fully customized decks,  so they didn't want to break that streak. 

They're not really passing this off as their own.  They fully acknowledge that this and the dragon backs are recolor of a previously released deck by USPCC.

[Rob Wright]

Playingcardsdotnet and Gambler's Warehouse is the same. When asked why they launched this on a separate account,  they stated that the Gambler's Warehouse account is for fully customized decks,  so they didn't want to break that streak. 

They're not really passing this off as their own.  They fully acknowledge that this and the dragon backs are recolor of a previously released deck by USPCC.

Let me correct myself. They are being transparent. Doesn't make it any better. It's a simple recolor of somebody else's work. They would have made these cards regardless of KS. This is just a quick way to sell a bunch of decks. This is a company. They are not artist. It's a money grab. They are getting as bad as CollectablePlayingCards.com.
I backed the Occults deck from Gamblers Warehouse, nothing from Collectable. I don't think I'll back another project from any of these guys, no matter how nice the cards might be.
 

[Don Boyer]

I just looked over the gamblerswarehouse.com website, and sure enough, after reading the "About Us" page (which was oddly devoid of graphics) I clicked to see their products and was steered to playingcards.net.

The company appears to be exceptionally clueless in selling online.  I click on images to see a zoomed image - and it turns out to be just a few millimeters larger, with this weird-ass "boing" visual effect where the images bounce out of and back into the page as if mounted on springs.  Many products have the incorrect photo to go with them, they describe the orange-back, white-border version of the Yomiuri Giants decks as "New York Giants" (and are selling it dirt cheap, by the way), clicking through to product descriptions is a fruitless exercise in patience - all the descriptions are single-sentence descriptions of the product titles, nothing additional about the product.  The product arrangement is pretty random, with the listed categories appearing to be merely suggestions as to what you'll find there.

To sum up - it's bad.

I give them kudos for carrying some Kickstarter decks, even the limited edition ones only meant for sale on Kickstarter, though the pricing of the rarer ones can be a little harder to swallow.

[ATS]

Whilst their own website is very basic, they have been on Amazon as a seller, using Amazon as it's main front for business. For a kickstarter project though, the prices are extremely cheap for what is being offered. With international shipping included, these would be cheaper then any project I've backed before. Would this be due to a large order being made for printing and cheaper costs, or running at a loss?

[Don Boyer]

Whilst their own website is very basic, they have been on Amazon as a seller, using Amazon as it's main front for business. For a kickstarter project though, the prices are extremely cheap for what is being offered. With international shipping included, these would be cheaper then any project I've backed before. Would this be due to a large order being made for printing and cheaper costs, or running at a loss?

Either is possible - but running at a loss is the more likely of the two.

[Will W.]

Surely the original designers will be getting royalties from these new color versions of their decks. At least I would hope so.... " Imitation is the best kind of flattery" , so they say.  I like different variations of decks myself but I do agree that the bicycle skull decks are a 100% ripoff of the Skull Backs.  Kick starter really isn't the way to release a new color scheme either, it should be used for original ideas and creative designs.

[Don Boyer]

Surely the original designers will be getting royalties from these new color versions of their decks. At least I would hope so.... " Imitation is the best kind of flattery" , so they say.  I like different variations of decks myself but I do agree that the bicycle skull decks are a 100% ripoff of the Skull Backs.  Kick starter really isn't the way to release a new color scheme either, it should be used for original ideas and creative designs.

This deck back was originally designed over a HUNDRED YEARS ago.  The original designer isn't getting bupkiss for it.  He's more than likely dead.

Now, if you want to know the recent history of this back...

Bill Kalush discovered an antique deck with this back on it.  It was so old (and USPC keeps such terrible records of these things) that USPC forgot they even made it.  Bill had it cleaned up and retouched a bit and introduced it on his "Bicycle Professional Skull & Bones Back" deck in three colors - black, red and a very deep red (the result of switching colors mid-run while it was printed).  Like the previous Bicycle Professional decks, they were traditionally cut and used a premium stock, Bee Casino.

Several months later, USPC decided to compete against their own customer and introduced their "Bicycle Skull" deck.  It was made to the same standards as a regular pack of Bikes - meaning not as nice.  They only made them in black.

Now you have these guys wanting to make two more colors of that same lesser version of the deck...and worse, they want to make the suits monochrome.  Ever play solitaire with a monochrome deck?

[Will W.]

Oh... I see now! 
I will boycott these decks in protest! 

[DarkDerp]

The design is  owned by the USPCC right? By  finding and cleaning up the old design he was able to  sell a limited edition high quality reprint. I don't see how brand protection could  be expected on a brand that is not owned. Bill got to sell his product as a lost USPCC design and under their branding which seems like a  pretty solid reward. Anything past this I just can't see being expected.

[DarkDerp]

Also.. from playingcards.net http://playingcards-net.3dcartstores.com/12-Decks-of-Bicycle-Bridge-Size-Playing-Cards_p_689.html if anyone feels like ordering and then demanding their 12 decks of origins...

[Don Boyer]

The design is  owned by the USPCC right? By  finding and cleaning up the old design he was able to  sell a limited edition high quality reprint. I don't see how brand protection could  be expected on a brand that is not owned. Bill got to sell his product as a lost USPCC design and under their branding which seems like a  pretty solid reward. Anything past this I just can't see being expected.

The original design wasn't owned by USPC any more - it was not registered as a trademark and lost its copyright protection many years ago, making it a part of the public domain.  The company staff didn't even remember it and couldn't find records of it, so there's no way on Earth they can claim it's a trademark!  Bill Kalush had the design modified as part of the process of cleaning up the image for printing - so that modified version was his.  One could argue that the new design was Bill's copyrighted work.  But rather than fight and watch the lawyers have a pissing contest in court for a few hundred bucks an hour, he decided to ditch USPC and make his own decks from now on!  He was a solid customer of theirs, they screwed him over and now they don't get a penny from him anymore.  Better still, as USPC runs roughshod over their other Custom Dept. customers, Bill gets more and more business - it's better than advertising!  He jokingly mentioned once that he should be paying them a commission for all the business they're sending his way.

No matter how you slice it, it was a rotten thing for USPC to do to someone who up to that point was a loyal and regular customer.

It's not the first time something like that happened.  US Games Systems, primarily a tarot deck printer, makes a deck called "Rally" that uses an old USPC Bicycle back that had slipped into public domain without being protected in any other way.  There are also examples of recent Chinese-made decks that use some older, classic Bicycle backs - I saw a shop selling one such deck in my neighborhood.

Also.. from playingcards.net http://playingcards-net.3dcartstores.com/12-Decks-of-Bicycle-Bridge-Size-Playing-Cards_p_689.html if anyone feels like ordering and then demanding their 12 decks of origins...

...or you could order 36 decks of Bicycle Rider Backs if you're into gaff cards...

http://playingcards-net.3dcartstores.com/36-Decks-of-Bicycle-Rider-Back-Playing-Cards_p_702.html