I stumbled across this photo the other day and wondered if anyone could help.
Does anyone know when the USPCC discontinued making the Bee no 35 back cards otherwise known as the worm back ? Looking at some other images of the same deck it appears the date code on the Ace of Spades is the A code meaning either 1980 or 2000 and was wondering if the typical stamp of today was in use in 1980.
I couldn't say exactly when - it's not recently. Conjuring Arts Research Center used more than once it in their Erdnase Bee deck series, but USPC hasn't printed it for themselves in a while.
The box shown in those photos is not from 2000 - your deck is likely from 1980. In 1992, USPC switched to a multi-colored box design to celebrate the brand's 100th anniversary while that box is monochrome, like the older decks. It was sometime between the late 1970s and the early 1980s that the deck seal switch from moisture-activated adhesive stamps to self-adhesive stickers occurred, placing your 1980 deck squarely in the right time period. Anything earlier than that, assuming the AoS code is correct, would have had a tax stamp on it.
Assuming no major changes to the boxes/seals, the 2020 "A" deck will have a black sticker seal on it rather than blue or red, as the company switched to using black almost exclusively after the opening of the Erlanger plant in 2009, particularly for their "standard" brands/models commonly found in retailers across the country and regularly reprinted (as opposed to limited editions or single store-chain specials for Target, Walmart, BJ's Wholesale Club, etc.).
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