Closed GB: Key West Casino playing cards w card back, box & custom ace art

KEY WEST PLAYING CARDS -- GROUP BUY CLOSED. CARDS HAVE ARRIVED!

J5's new original "Casino Diamond Back" design uses a classic, "real casino" deck look in Imperial blue and red. The watermark on the mock-up will not appear on the decks. Below, even the boxes look great, and include a professional inventory box, like the real casino decks.

The idea: A good quality deck of custom cards with a new, original card back design by J5 featuring the "Key West Resort & Casino" logo, with the logo end-on-end, and the look and feel of real casino decks.

J5 has really captured the concept, creating a new, beautiful geometric borderless back design he has dubbed the "Casino Diamond Back," executed in two of the understated colors from the Key West chips -- imperial blue and red -- traditional deck colors with a "Key West" flavor.

Price: $3 per deck, plus shipping, during this group buy. Overrun decks from this order will be sold for $3.39 here, and higher elsewhere.

The specs: The decks will be poker size with jumbo pips, made by Liberty Playing Cards on their "Imperial Linen" cardstock, a high-quality coated card that has a nice textured feel. In a poll of CT members, poker size edged out bridge size decks, 58 to 42 percent. Here's a link to the poll:

http://www.chiptalk.net/forum/poker-...er-bridge.html

Jumbo pips will be used here, so you can get these decks for that 10-seat table (or if your group is as old as I am). Our members here spoke up for the card and pip size.

Boxes: The decks will come in full tuck boxes, again done beautifully by John at J5.

Ace: The decks will have a custom "ace of spades" with the Key West palm tree on the spade and the casino name below, again a feature of a casino deck. The one shown is watermarked, which won't be on the card in the deck.





Producers: Before selecting the producer, I e-mailed or called several to learn about their options, prices and minimums. U.S. Playing Card Co., and Cartimundi were very nice, but had high minimums. (USPC said 2,000 decks for KEM plastic, and 2,500 decks for Bee casino cards; Cartimundi said their minimum was 5,000 decks.) Gemaco didn't answer my query e-mail, and I've heard to get their top-quality cards, you have to be a licensed casino. Several small-run producers were contacted, but the card quality wasn't there. (Mostly, small-run producers do "promotional" decks with a company logo displayed like a cheap photo on the back. Most of those cards were very stiff -- too stiff to comfortably use in a game -- and some were so glossy, or coated, or something, that the cards showed scratches after a couple of shuffles.)

Liberty Playing Cards promptly sent some very impressive samples, and card back images were superb. Liberty's cards were not as stiff and did not scratch or hold marks or fingerprints, like some of the other small-run producers' cards. Their card materials and coating were comparable to a retail USPC deck, and handled very nicely, too. Liberty sample photos are in post 14.

Price vs. cost: Liberty quoted $3.14 per deck, not counting set-up fees and shipping. I'd like to get these decks out to Chiptalk members for $3 per deck, so here's there deal: Decks will be $3 per deck in this group buy. After that, the overrun from our order wll be available here for $3.39 and more to the public -- closer to $4 per deck, I think.

I will pay J5's fee and Liberty's setup fees and the initial shipping to make the project happen -- all the fees I'd have to pay to make the cards anyway.

Minimums: The minimum order is two (2) decks, one of each color. I'd prefer to ship these decks in "blocks" of 12 decks -- six of each color, simply to avoid a dozen requests for "one deck, shipped to the South Pole."


Shipping: Flat-rate boxes will be used if practical for your order. Small (two-deck) orders will go out in a padded envelope via first-class for $3 (in the U.S.). Since a small flat-rate box fits only eight decks, the 12-deck orders will go out in a box for the same price, but might take a day or two longer. Here's the shipping cost table:

Order size / Shipped by / Shipping cost
2 decks / Padded envelope / $3.00
Up to 8 decks / Small flat-rate box / $5.35
12 decks / Box sent first-class / $5.35
13 to 64 decks / Medium flat-rate box / $11.35
65 to 114 decks / Large flat rate box / $15.45

Shipping outside the U.S.: Please PM me with your city, country and postal code so I can calculate shipping for your order. (There is never one rate to a country.)

If you are buying chips in the April group buy, cards and chips should ship together for one shipping charge. I will PM your total.

Payment: Send payment by Paypal or Amazon Payments (preferred) to: dsandusky@usacops.com. Please note your name, CT name and shipping address in the note field. If you don't, I won't know who to send your cards to!

Standard group buy rules apply! If you're interested, post below.

[dennis63]

This group buy is successfully completed!

I heard late last week from the last members to receive their cards (and chips from the chip group buy). That means this group buy is successfully completed!

Please feel free to post photos of your cards (and chips) in action. I'd love to see them!

It has been a pleasure to organize this group buy, and a great experience to work with J5 to create a great deck of cards.

If anyone needs replacement decks or would still like to try a couple of decks of these cards, please let me know at any time. (I have quite a few decks left from our original order. (The pirce in the classifieds is a bit higher, per deck. This price covers the actual per-deck price and a small commission to J5, per deck -- part of our agreement when he created the great art for these cards, and didn't charge much to get us going with it.

Thank you all again for taking part! I hope those cards bring you all some very good luck!