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Product: USPCC Hindu Stripper Deck

Supplier: International Magic (www.internationalmagic.com)

Price: £6.50

Difficulty: (Depends on how you use it)

Review:

According to rumours started in Another Place, Marco at International Magic in the Clerkenwell Road has been lobbying the US Playing Card Company itself to produce the famous Bicycle Rider Back 808 deck in stripper format, rather than let third parties modify them. This, apparently, is it.

Being factory-made by the company that makes Bikes, the decks come wrapped in cellophane, with the seal in tact. Peel the “Special Bicycle Stripper Deck” sticker off and there’s nothing to tell them apart from other standard Bike stock. Inside is the usual deck with two jokers and instructions on how to play Sudoku (personally, I just fill the squares in to look clever – it’s not like anyone checks them!).

Take a card out and you’ll see that half the gimmick appears on each side, rather than the usual one, keeping the borders in check and far less obvious than on a single side Hindu stripper deck. Not that single sided decks have ever been a problem for me, but this makes them a lot subtler.

This is a nice, subtle deck, and it’s available in blue as well as red rather than the usual red-unless-you’re-lucky. Not exactly the sainted Ellusionist Ghost Stripper Deck, granted, but nice all the same.

Not knocking at all - just curious.

What makes the Ghost stripper so good? I only ask because I have a Black Tiger stripper deck which was very poorly created.

The card stock on the Ghost deck is slightly thicker than usual, giving them a more rigid, "hard" feel in the hands. They are a lovely deck of cards to handle. Plus they glow in UV, of course.

Gotcha. Thanks for the info!

i just received my factory cut stripper decks TODAY. one red one blue Bikes! these are FANTASTIC!!! beautifully done and truely almost impossible to see the gimmick(s).

the best part, i bought them on eBay from a retailer for US$4 deck.

details are: go to www.eBay.com and search this item number:
6634030225
buy it now price US$4 each.

suggestion:
look through the guy's store. he says he wont combine shipping costs but if you pick out several items i find he does. pick what you want and then write him and ask him to cfm the shipping cost. be prepared for him to answer v e r y s l o w ... but he told me he gets more than 400 orders per week so...

his prices are so great, worth putting up wirth delays and he always supplies what u want in the end.

i hv bought a heap of gear from this guy at GREAT prices! only been disappointed once, his card guards cheap but not so nice. everything else i hv bought A-Class!

is the pattern altered to fit the borders? Or is it just a normal card with cuts on it? Wouldn't Mind If You could post a picture up

let me put it this way...

there are 2 main types of stripper decks (other than these new ones from USPCC). if u look closely at the gimmick on these normal NOT factory produced stripper decks, u see can the adding of the gimmick has effected the nice round corner of the cards. this more obvious on the cheaper stripper decks which only have the gimmick on one side than it is on the better stripper decks that have the gimmick on both sides but it is obvious none the less.

the difference: the die that cuts the card out on these factory produced stripper decks appears to have the "gimmick" in it. that means to say as the whole card looks "right" and the pattern and edge "looks" parallel because the gimmick is very evenly applied to 2 sides and all 4 corners of each card are nice and round just like a regular deck.

in reference to your question about the pattern, and is it adjusted to take the gimmick into consideration, NO. unnecssary really... has anyone bought a "normal" deck of bikes recently where the pattern is perfectly centred on the card?

any way, i can only say that i hv several different types of stripper decks, and these are by far the BEST!

I would say perfectly centred or not is not noticible, but a slanted pattern is. Of course, you don't really let them examine it, I'm just curious.
How much is off the bottom? Last stripper I owned was 2mm less width down bottom.

the gimmick is applied to BOTH long sides. but it appears, done as part of the USPCC's die cutting process. so the gimmick itself is not noticable, and because it is applied to both sides it is almost "invisible" in terms of the angle of the pattern. i agree with what you say but seriously... you really could hand these out for inspection.

http://www.cards4magic.co.uk/acatalog/N ... ST_IN.html

strippers for six quid - and a few vintage releases too...probably been said already, but there you go...nice fast delivery, usually next day...

these are the exact same cards i bought, i can tell by the packaging. i guess compare prices including whatever tax u need to pay plus shipping etc. earlier in this thread i posted the details of the eBay source i bought from.

Option wrote:How much is off the bottom? Last stripper I owned was 2mm less width down bottom.

2mm is far too much. Normally, the gimmick should be 0.3 - 0.5mm. These babies are on the low side of 0.3mm in total. Very subtle.

I'm still a newbie, but what is a stripper deck!? Or is this something that cant be revealed?

something that cant be revealed?

Got it in one! Check the online magic supply firms and you should get a good idea what one of these is and what is does.

do a search here and u'll know what it is.