"The primary reason for the "box revival" is that the older design is still popular among many people who use the deck and there are several magician's gaffs that are designed specifically to be used with the older "807" type box design."
Thanks very much for your information. I have an older long flap 808 which is what confused me.
I would still like to know what the difference is as you seem to indicate they are the same. Is it just the printing on the outside, Rider Back instead of Standard? If they are exactly the same otherwise, what is the trick?
Again, thanks,
Sam
These might help you figure it out. I did a little more research and there's a few corrections here.
ShopBicycleCards.com is a company called Wingra Direct - a wholly-owned subsidiary of USPC. They also manage Club 808 merchandise for the company.
http://www.shopbicyclecards.com/Bicycle-Standard-P77C42.aspxThis link, above, takes you to the page selling the "Standard" box, so named because instead of saying "Rider Back", they now say "Standard" in large letters. (BTW: "Standard" is defined by USPC simply as a poker-sized deck with standard-sized indices. There are other decks that say "Standard" on them besides the basic red, blue and black Rider Backs, but they're few and far between.) It is what we now call the "808" deck.
http://www.shopbicyclecards.com/807-Rider-Back-P214C42.aspxThis link, above, takes you to the same company's site on the page selling what they're calling the "807" deck. Collectors were referring to this as the "Classic" box style when the changeover in the box design took place, before they started offering this "807" deck in 2013. The cards in the box are IDENTICAL IN EVERY WAY to the cards in the "Standard" box, right down to the joker king on his Bicycle passing the "808" milestone. The outside of the box, however, is done in the earlier style used prior to 2009, and probably for the better part of a century before that with some variations.
On one side, both boxes will say "Air Cushion Finish" and "Made in U.S.A." The opposite site, however, is different. The Standard/808 box says "Come to Play" and "Bicyclecards.com" while the Classic/807 box says only "The United States Playing Card Co." in a single line of text. The back of the Classic/807 box is an image of the Rider Back design, while the back of the Standard/808 box is some descriptive text about what a great company USPC is and an image of some Rider Back cards.
Here's a topic about this deck - though the deck wasn't for sale at the time on Wingra Direct!
http://www.playingcardforum.com/index.php?topic=1381.0As you can see from the discussion, there was a final "Cincinnati" version of the box that had what appears to be a model number of 807-R-TG printed on the bottom, right of the barcode and below the phrase "Bicycle Poker 808." (I had earlier in this topic confused this number for being part of the barcode - my apologies.) Then this other model, copyrighted 2011, eliminated the model number and replaced it with what all modern USPC decks now have, a fine-print paragraph of copyright information, starting with the year of the copyright. It's a safe assumption that the Classic box with the 2011 copyright on it is the product they started selling last year as the "Bicycle 807," since collectors spotted that model number and associated it with the earlier of the two box designs, and the copyright year is probably updated to match the year the deck is printed. The name would appear to have been derived from what we're guessing was the model number the last Cincinnati-made version of the tuck, leaving out the letters and using just the numeric portion. The Bicycle 807 deck, prior to Wingra Direct selling it, was probably something made available to magic shops but not to the general public.
We do know that many of the first decks to come from Erlanger were packaged in the "807-R-TG" boxes that stated they were from Cincinnati - it's assumed that the boxes were preprinted and that USPC was using up left-over stock from Cincinnati rather than destroying it. The 2011 boxes, as shown in this topic, have no listing of an address, allowing the company in theory to use them indefinitely regardless of address changes. However, it's not impossible that there are variants of this box design that do indeed include the Erlanger address. I know that some custom-designed versions of the Rider Back and other decks made at USPC under contract to other companies (such as Theory11) have a box style that's similar to if not nearly identical to the Classic box which does indeed show the company's Erlanger address in the same manner that the Cincinnati address used to be presented. A few prime examples of this would be the most recent printings of the Bicycle Titanium Series and the Propaganda deck, both made by USPC for T11. T11 has a closer connection to USPC than most deck producers - they were hired to create some custom decks for USPC, models that were both USPC-exclusives as well as ones that were released by both companies, T11 and USPC. Additionally, USPC's most recent redesign of bicyclecards.com was done for them by T11.
THE SHORT VERSION OF THE STORY: the cards in both the Standard/808s and the Classic/807s are identical. The 807s are the closest thing you're going to find to the Classic tuck box in a newly-printed deck from USPC. 807s were offered because there are many magic tricks that utilize design features of the Classic box that no longer exist on the Standard box - and presumably there are some customers beside magicians that prefer the older box design. A prime example of an design element that's used in magic would be the back of the Classic box, which has a full-sized image of the deck's card back, while the Standard box replaced it with what is essentially an ad for the brand. I know of tricks that use that image on the back of the box as part of a gimmick used to execute the trick, meaning that with the Standard box, you can't perform that trick in a convincing manner. If you're looking for a specific trick, check out "Cased" by Peter Eggink, sold by Ellusionist.
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