talkmagic.co.uk

Hey!

Does someone have any good website that can provide me with cheap bicycle playing cards? Where do you buy your cards? Oh, and yes! Im in Sweden so i need to ship them if they are in another country!

Tnx for the help!
/M

Magicbox in Newcastle (and probably other dealers) do Bicycle seconds which are low cost and the UK/USA Store Costco sell bricks of Bikes, full quality, 6 red back and 6 blue back for a very low sum.

I always buy the bicycle seconds from Magic Box, the cards are usually just as good as normal bicycle cards. I've certainly never had a deck that I couldn't use.

This is no longer the case, as I've found out recently. The seconds MagicBox are now selling are not genuine Bike "mis-shapes" - at least my latest batch wasn't. They're printed on thinner stock and there are no inking errors, so instead of being full-fat Bicycles which are cheaper due to the odd error, they're just cheaper cards shoved in seconds boxes.

I've heard that MagicBox are now buying wholesale from Fournier in Spain rather than direct from USPCC, due to the crunch and the cost of shipping, so this may well be the reason. Fournier desiring to still sell Bike seconds, but manufacturing them as seconds deliberately.

I'm annoyed but I didn't complain - they're useable all the same since I never have cards out of my hands and get through a deck every few days.

But just bear this in mind if you are buying seconds soon and expect true Bike stock.

Thanks for the heads up, queenie. That is disappointing to hear but I suppose Magicbox have to do what is necessary in these hard times. Do the cards still handle the same as the Bike seconds?

THANK YOU QUEENIE!

HARD EVIDENCE!

Months and months ago I made a complaint on the forum saying some of the card stock was definately different but NOBODY believed me.

Bloody injustice

If this is true, then I think Magicbox need to change their description of the seconds because it is misleading.

Bicycle Seconds are the USPCC factory seconds

Replicant wrote:Thanks for the heads up, queenie. That is disappointing to hear but I suppose Magicbox have to do what is necessary in these hard times. Do the cards still handle the same as the Bike seconds?

Not really. They are thinner, so a little more difficult to manage (I'm talking hundredths of a millimeter here, but bear in mind you're talking to a woman who can tell just by picking up a deck of Tallys if the jokers are still in it cos it feels fat), and they "pop" - meaning you can snap them concave or convex like the lid of a pickle jar.

I'd better make the disclaimer that this is just based on 1 brick I recently bought from them, so I'm just speculating.

There is also the problem of half the deck just snapping into concave position and having a ridiculous natural crimp. Of course, this can be altered with pressure fan or spring but it's very irritating.

queen of clubs wrote:I've heard that MagicBox are now buying wholesale from Fournier in Spain rather than direct from USPCC, due to the crunch and the cost of shipping

That's a strange decision as the £ vs € has dropped far more than the £ vs $ in the last 12 months. Oh well, back to Costco.....

How noticable is the difference? Could perhaps be a useful way of using a standard card as a key card in a seconds deck if it's easy to feel the differene between the two.

queen of clubs wrote:they "pop" - meaning you can snap them concave or convex like the lid of a pickle jar

Yes I've had that with some cheap seconds - I hate it! Any cards in a deck like that quickly become my signed and torn card warp "victims".

Hehe, i dont think i got my question answered quite well but i apparently started a interesting conversation

MaxBeat wrote:Hehe, i dont think i got my question answered quite well but i apparently started a interesting conversation

I think the answer might be - don't! You will only save a few pence (or Krona or whatever it is in Sweden) and might get an unusable deck.

Yes, I've noticed I get the odd deck that does the whole "snapping" thing, and also that the cards are thinner - are we sure it's to do with them being seconds though? I seem to remember a friend of mine buying some coloured decks (burgandy, yellow etc) from bicycle and being disgruntled because they were thinner - is this just a direction in which Bicycle are moving?