New Decks, New Colors, New Manufacturer, two Wilds!

Shipping in August!

In about 1 month, we will be ready to ship our newly recolored, remanufactured, and remodeled decks of 57 cards plastics.  Here are the noteworthy changes to be expected in the upcoming edition:

New Colors

Since the beginning of our fully plastic decks in 2008, we have always had trouble working with the color yellow when printing on a white background with a fully plastic PVC print stock.  If the color was too light, then it was hard to see…especially for those with visual impairment.

As we modified our yellows to bring more depth and color while still keeping close to a yellow, we ran into a printed issue where the yellows resembled the red too closely.

A couple of versions afterwards and our yellow was looking more and more like brown.

We decided not to fight it.  Why try and keep using yellow when the color simply doesn’t work well in printing on plastic decks?  Out with the Yellow, and in with…Brown.

Yellow has been upgraded to the happy color Brown!

This should remove the confusion that occasionally occurred between yellow and red.

We are happy that friendly color brown has joined the circle of trust with the 57cards deck.

New Manufacturer

The most difficult issue to overcome has been finding a manufacturer to print on PVC card stock that will do it in a manner that protects the printing from fading very quickly.  This is an issue that not only our fully plastic decks have experienced.  I have tested on Copag decks and some of the fully plastic decks had fading issues over time as well.   Back in the days when my buddies used to get together to play cards we had a deck of regular Copag playing cards that faded drastically to the point where it was hard to see the numbers anymore.  We used them for about a year, once a week, and then had to get a replacement.  Copag took care of their customers, just like we try to do when any of our customers run into similar issues.

That being said, I have also played with other plastic playing cards that do not appear to fade a quickly.  Some have lasted more than 10 years with still great quality and visibility.  Only a few small markings to note.

So our goal has been to set out and reach that type of quality.  We want our decks to not only have strong PVC card stock that is not brittle or easily broken.  We do not want our edges to fray or get torn or ripped.  We do not want water or use to make the deck feel worn or used.  We want to be able to play with the deck over and over and still feel like the deck is brand new.  We want our deck to last long without breaking or fading!

Our latest manufacturer has experience in this realm in delivering the type of quality we are looking for.  Time will truly tell us whether the newly manufactured deck has the fortitude to withstand all the games we put them through.  We are optimistic!

The new manufacturer will be tested coming this August!

Two Deck Options

We now have two different deck backs for those looking to play simultaneously with two decks and didn’t want to get them mixed up.  Having two different deck backs opens the door to many other game possibilities as well.

Extra Wild Card

Our decks will now ship with an extra Wild (Rook) card.  For those math people out there, yes it does mean that our deck is now a 58 card deck.  And no, a rebrand to 58Cards is not on the way.  Instead, we like to think of the extra wild card as an optional replacement card that could be used either to fill in the hole for certain games that require two different wilds, or it simply can be used as a backup wild for the normal Rook card games.