So, there are many finishes and different stocks for cards
Which are The best?
You've got the standard air-cushion finish, linen finish, UV-500 air flow, linen finish smooth finish, magic finish and many more.
What are all the finishes and which are the best?
There are more finishes than the ones you listed, by far.
Air-cushion is a trademark of the USPC, used for their Bicycle brand.
Ivory and Cambric finishes are also USPC-owned for Bee playing cards. Recently the CARC release Bicycle Professionals, and they're available in air-cushion and ivory finishes, but that's only because CARC is so used to creating variant Bee decks and the USPC was willing to go with the flow for a high-volume customer that's raising the brand name for them.
The Linoid finish is exclusive to Tally-Ho cards, another USPC brand name.
True linen finishes haven't been made in about four decades - the process involved using linen rollers, long out of practice by the playing card industry, at least in America.
Smooth finish is just that - a smooth card, whatever the coating is. Not much special about them. Most smooth finish cards fan like crap because the dimpling found in other finishes creates a flow of air around the card, much like the dimples of a golf ball allow it to travel faster than a smooth ball of the same size, weight and composition. Smooth Aladdins are the major exception, I'm told. I have them, I like them.
UV-500 Air-Flow is actually more than the finish. UV-500 refers to the card stock, a special stock that glows when exposed to a black/ultraviolet light. Air-Flow was being used exclusively by Ellusionist on their various Bicycle-branded decks and the Arcanes until USPC Legal stated any cards made with the Bicycle name had to be called "Air-Cushion Finish" regardless of what the actual finish was. Silly rule - USPC breaks it constantly, such as the Bike Pros mentioned above and the Bike Brimstone deck.
That leaves one major finish on the market - USPC's Magic Finish. The same product used on an E deck is called "Performance Coating" because they feel it sounds classier, and the forthcoming White Arrco decks from Blue Crown will be called "Premium Finish" even though this is also the same stuff - again, they thought it was classier.
In terms of quality, giving a totally subjective opinion, I'd rate them thusly, least good to best:
Smooth (except Aladdin)
Ivory
Air-Cushion
Aladdin Smooth
Cambric/Linoid/Air-Flow (3-way tie)
Magic/Performance/Premium (3 names for the same thing)
I'd say linen is probably high on that list, but I don't have any linen finish decks. Steel rollers replace cotton and linen ones sometime around the 1970s or possibly the '80s.
One more thing - finish quality will ALWAYS BE SUBJECTIVE. There's no definitive answer as to what beats what, although the general consensus around here seems to be that Magic or whatever you want to call it trumps the others. The only thing that might come close would be the type of finish found on cards like Jerry's Nugget decks, but they're practically extinct and extraordinarily expensive, made by a process prohibitively expensive by today's standards that can't even be reproduced without violating some environmental protection laws.
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