talkmagic.co.uk

as most of you know i dabble mostly with cards but try and stay away from gimmicked decks/gaffed cards as such, and so I'm not restricted to the whole "but i must use bicycles as theyre the only ones that come in all the different gaffs etc" type of arguement. So i was wonderign what types of cards are the most widely used (ok i know bikes are the most widely but i mean other than bikes!), Personally ive used Bee, Tally ho, Bulldog squeezers, Aviator and more recently have recieved a pack of Fournier cards, each has its own merit, for some it may just be an entirely different back design (bulldogs are also a one way back design... very useful ) where as the Bee decks have an all over back design which can be used to confuse. Fournier as it turns out are plastic coated (which also come in handy for you know what!) rather than the usual US playing card co. style of linen back


so the question is... are you all just Bikers or do you dare be different?

I have been using bikes purely because
1, im a fashion victim
2, thats just what I thought I should use for gaff reasons, though like you I try not to use them now.

Thing is I have to say, I don't like them at all, I expected to get used to them over time and I have but my hands are just too small for them and the feel of them degrades quite rapidly.
I haven't used the other brands but would be interested to hear why they are good or bad.

ps I wish this thread had come up last week, I ordered 6 decks, lol.

i wouldnt say i had overly large hands but i can do most things with a poker sized deck... palming is a bit "iffy" though

Yeah that is what I was thinking of, that and and small wrists make things like the snap change a chance in a million to me, now I have grown used to them though, small cards feel, well, too small, surprisingly.

BaB

I use Bikes mainly for the reaosn you mentioned, that thats the format used for most of the gaff sets. So if you do anything with gaffed Bikes then you may as well always use normal Bikes for everything else.

It would be easier in America as they are the cards that most people would own anyway. On my recent trip there, they were the cards always given to me when I was asked to show some magic.

In the UK, the most common pack would be probably Waddingtons bridge sized cards (and so should be included in the poll), so it's always worth having a few packs of these handy just for practicing some of the common moves.

I do have a few packs of Bees (actually pinnochle sets) - that I use for practicing Monte tricks, as these have a more ambiguous and slighlty hypontic look that is needed for that type of trick.

Bee's aren't great for other tricks though - especially if a elmsley is called for as they don't have the white border which gives me that small percentage of leeway.

The advantage of sticking with Bikes is that now people I have already shown magic to are used to that being my chosen deck preference, and so dont expect them now to be anything but normal cards. (which they are of course - well, most of the time).

I used to be hng up on using just Blue - but now I will work with either and normally will actually have two decks (one of each on the table) plus several switch decks in my pocket),

Yes I have big pockets

i agree about the bees being of no use for elmsleys but as i said there are many other types of card that have a border (tallys, bulldogs etc) so there are still other options.

bum i can honestly say i have never used a snap change in any effect ive ever done, so this isnt an issue for me. however i read someplace that if you can do most stuff with a poker size deck then using a bridge size for pretty much anything should be easy, so the advice given was to stick to the poker size

I stay with Bikes because of the interchangeability with gaffed decks/packet tricks etc. I even did the suggested changes to the Mindpower deck to cover up the different card back design and it makes me feel a lot more comfortable with it. Of course, the real magicians who can do things with unprepared and/or borrowed decks score here as they don't need to stay compatible between gaffed and regular cards/decks.

On the whole, the selection of stuff in Bikes seems to be much wider than other cards. The only one I can think of which seems to be unavailable on Bike stock is Mysterious Kings so I had my own set done for that. The majority of stuff I have and use is on Bike stock but there are exceptions: Cardtoon and Cardtoon 2 - both are on Carta Mundi stock, Sneak -a -Peek, and a couple of things on Jumbo cards. The cheapo cards (currently £1.00 for two decks plus 5 dice in a nice plastic box!) are great for rehearsing, cutting up and generally abusing (don't worry, it's nothing rude!) and I'm not forgetting the one great use - with Xpert! Oh yes, and a couple of decks of Americas Most Wanted for the same reason!

(Does anyone use Bikes for actually playing card games - you know, the proper usage - Poker, Rummy Patience etc?!)

Does anyone use Bikes for actually playing card games?

Card Games? What are they then? You mean you can do something other than magic with those small but perfectly formed little rectangles of plastic coated card? What a weird concept.

Exactly! When we were on holiday this year, towards the end of a long and tiring day my ever-loving suggested a game of cards (we've reached that stage in life when that's all we can think of in the way of excitement!) and she reached for the deck of Bikes I'd been playing with earlier. This was almost sacrilege! As it happened, they were ordinary cards but it still felt very odd! I wish now I'd used a marked deck or something and I might have won a hand or two - demon card player is Mrs.Mandrake!

I don't use the snap in anything serious but as much as my younger family members worship the ground my magical feet walk on, cough, I will not in their eyes be a true magician until I do that move for them, damn you DB.


BaB

ps - cough, updated, cough
http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=2153

pps, mandrake, cheap cards, you should be ashamed of yourself, ahem

I went down to the local quid shop after reading your first post about them, thanks for that.

I'm not sure if they still do them but I bought a pack of Penguin Book cards from Waterstones. They're great because each one (as well as the usual suits and numbers) has a different original Penguin Book cover. 52 different books. I then went to a second hand bookstore on Charing x Road and bought a few of the books from identical editions so that I could use them for a book prediction. Hey then straight into a book test.

Yup - those cards and dice are very, very similar!

Mine have an all over pattern on the back liike casino cards (and I can use that as the excuse for changing decks) but our local shops do exactly the same design as you illustate. And you get 1p change - no fair!!

ahhh the Manchester tightness comes into play again

I have to say the stuff isn't of the highest quality (to say the least, see tightness again), I just got them so we can play poker with something a little less heartbreaking than my bikes.

I think I am going to give some other card brands a try, it is a shame we don't have the "everybody uses <insert brand here> for everything" situation that the states have. Our cards would cost more (but cost less abroad) and have a slightly lower build quality but dammit they would have some heritage!
A strong letter to my MP I think...
OK, I'll be quiet now, off to the basement for me.
BaB

since i've only used marvins wizard and svengali deck oh and a non descript brainwave deck, id have to pick other, well if there was other in the poll then thats would have been my pick.

dont do many card tricks I'm a more prop guy, but when i do i just use my wizard deck so i dont even have to switch it out to do locates and shuffles.

Bikes.

Lots of them.

In my opinion, they are like the Nescafe of playing cards. Yeah, we all brag about how good Tesco's own instant tastes - and hey - we've even fobbed people off with it. But Nescafe coffee stick rocks. And why???

Quality.

Also, there's the fact that they seem to be 'industry standard'.

Perhaps because they're available in USA at rock-bottom price. In fact, my sweet lady bought me 60 decks back from her recent visit - in packs of 10 - 5 red, 5 blue. They are like retail display boxes, and weigh in at $13 per-10 decks. Thats' $1.30 per-deck, or 75p per-deck in round terms.

I love bikes - the quality, the familiarity, the 'camouflage' of the back (for cutting/gaffing), and the fact that most of my gimmick cards/decks are bikes.

Oh yes, I love them, yes I do...