A good rule of thumb - if a recent deck in a Cincinnati box has a black deck seal, there's a strong chance (a near-certainty) that the deck was made in Erlanger and not Cincinnati. Blue or red seals mean the deck is a Cincinnati deck, but you won't find them on the new Bicycle Standard boxes, at least not yet.
Hey Don,
Thanks a lot for that excellent piece of info!
I purchased a few standard Bee decks around 6 months ago, and I was stunned at how badly they handled. I opened two of the 6 decks, and because they were both equally bad, I figured that the remaining 4 were going to be of little use to me, and so I gave them away as freebies for anyone who purchased a deck which I'd listed on eBay.
I was surprised because I'd always heard that Ohio made decks had superior quality... yet the ones I used absolutely sucked.
After reading the posts by yourself and Chach (by the way, thanks for spotting the issue!), I pulled out the Bee deck again, and the cards were indeed Erlanger made, and the tuck box had a black sticker!
I actually feel happier now that I know why the cards were sub-par. Thanks a lot guys!
Whilst I'm at it, here is a photo of my December receivings:
-- 2 bricks of Black Legends
-- 3 x Red Exquisite
-- 10 x V2 Pack Jackets
-- 3 x Richard Turner's Gamblers