Vintage airline decks: suitable for cardistry?

[darkinertia]

Ive been getting into flourishing with vintage decks and one thing i always come across are airline decks. They look amazing with the solid color bordered and basic logo on each side...but are they good for cardistry? I cant tell by the pics in ebay listings but i think they might be bridge sized, its hard to tell

Also i found this and i wish this was a whole deck because its the coolest back design ive seen! https://www.etsy.com/listing/287011321/vintage-airline-advertising-single

[Don Boyer]

Ive been getting into flourishing with vintage decks and one thing i always come across are airline decks. They look amazing with the solid color bordered and basic logo on each side...but are they good for cardistry? I cant tell by the pics in ebay listings but i think they might be bridge sized, its hard to tell

Also i found this and i wish this was a whole deck because its the coolest back design ive seen! https://www.etsy.com/listing/287011321/vintage-airline-advertising-single

Originally, airlines were often using poker-sized playing cards for their branded decks, given to customers to use in-flight.  As planes became more fully-packed with seats and tray tables became more narrow, they eventually switched to a bridge size, then airlines stopped making them altogether because of the added expense and the narrow margins under which many airlines operate.  I don't know of any major airlines that were still offering branded playing cards past the 1990s - and that late, they were few and far between.

The quality of the cards themselves may vary.  I'd be careful of using good vintage decks for cardistry - it takes a toll on them.  We're talking about artifacts from another age, when flying on an airplane was a big deal and people actually dressed up for the occasion, whereas today it bears a closer resemblance to a cattle drive with a dash of "security theater."  The decks are from a bygone era and won't hold up to hard use well at all.

For the most part, you'll find the decks are of "reasonable" quality - most of them were manufactured in an age when even a cheap deck was of decent quality, unlike today's "dollar store" decks that in some cases don't even adequately block light.  American-based airlines will probably have had their decks made by either USPC or Arrco - combined, they had the bulk of the airline-deck market in this country.  Outside the US, it's anyone's guess.  Old Canadian airline decks are probably from IPCC, which is just USPC under another name.

Reasonable quality, however, doesn't necessarily mean good for cardistry; it can depend on your style.  Some cardists do lots of cut work and prefer a deck that holds together in packets well, while others are more into flashier fans and spreads and prefer a card with more glide to it.  I'd say that if you prefer more glide out of your cards, you'll want a modern deck with a slicker finish to it.

Another thing to bear in mind is that the cheaper airline decks might be smooth rather than embossed - no little "air pocket" effect when cards slide together, meaning they stay together better.  Again, better for cuts than anything involving sliding cards against each other.

[darkinertia]

so it looks like i have to look out for more of the older decks, i have noticed almost all the listings ive come across ive asked them if they were bridge or poker and most said bridge sized. honestly i kinda like the feel of some of the vintage  smooth finish decks, i have a couple of the novelty ones like the camels and theyre not too bad, and i got a marvel xmen one from the late 80s that fans better than most of my decks now lol

so you know a thing or two about cards don, are you able to tell the difference between a bridge and poker sized deck just by looking at a pic of the box? i can never seem to tell unless theres a deck right next to it that i know is a poker deck

[Don Boyer]

so you know a thing or two about cards don, are you able to tell the difference between a bridge and poker sized deck just by looking at a pic of the box? i can never seem to tell unless theres a deck right next to it that i know is a poker deck

It would largely depend on the photo, but forth most part, it's extremely difficult to impossible to tell the difference with the naked eye, especially if you're looking at a photo of just a single deck of unknown size, with no deck of known size next to it for comparison.

If you can get an accurate (undistorted) image, however, and compare the ratio of the length and width, you'd actually be able to tell fairly reliably.  The ratio of length to width of a poker-sized deck is 7:5 while the same ratio for a bridge-sized deck is 14:9 (which can also be expressed as 7:4.5).  Swapping the length and width and expressing the ratios in the same terms as motion picture screens and video monitors (which are most frequently expressed as "1:X," with 1 representing the screen's height and X being the screen's width expressed in units of height), the poker ratio is exactly 1:1.4 and the bridge ratio is approximately 1:1.56 - it can't be expressed exactly because you can't exactly express the fraction five-ninths in decimal terms, at least not without using a superb.

The problem, however, is that it's uncommon to find an undistorted image of a deck - they're often photographed at some angle, creating depth-of-field distortion which alters the apparent distances in much the same way that a flat or conical image of the Earth creates distortions at the places where the Earth curves away from the surface due to being a sphere.  If you manage to find an image taken straight on of the front or back of either any one card or of the tuck box (assuming the tuck box's proportions roughly correspond to that of the cards, as they are generally a cozy fit), measuring the ratio of length and width will tell you what size the cards are.  (Even easier, though, would be to look for markings on the tuck box - they often say "poker," "standard" or "wide" for a poker deck, "bridge" or "narrow" for a bridge deck.)

[darkinertia]

i was thinking theyre might be a way just by looking at the seal since presumably the seal is the same size it can be a pedalpoint to start, especially on offset seals since the left side is considerably smaller looking on the bridge decks

[Don Boyer]

i was thinking theyre might be a way just by looking at the seal since presumably the seal is the same size it can be a pedalpoint to start, especially on offset seals since the left side is considerably smaller looking on the bridge decks

Placement of the seal might not be as helpful, as the seals weren't ever placed with that kind of precision - accurately enough, but not precisely the same on every deck.

However, the WIDTH of the seal compared to the width of the box might be a decent indicator.  You'd need to know the width of the seal and determine the ratio of the seal's width to that of the two different most-common sizes of playing cards.  Naturally, this assumes that the seals are of the same width - I believe that USPC seals haven't changed in width much since they were introduced, the biggest change being the switch from from stamp-type perforated seals to sticker-type seals.

Considering the variables of angle of the image and distortion issues would still apply, however, comparing the length of a given deck against its width would probably be a simpler process, I would think, and allows you to evaluate decks that are devoid of seals.