Pictorial Review: Rare Playing Cards - 2 Colourful Cardistry

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Pictorial Review: Rare Playing Cards - 2 Colourful Cardistry

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* * * More Rare Playing Cards - Colours and Patterns Feature! * * *

Rare & Colourful Playing Cards

Because I have family members, relatives, and friends who are professional and amateur artists, over time I've seen a lot of art, and I've also learned to appreciate and enjoy it. So I also love artistic playing cards. I love playing traditional card games, and while I'm happy to play a card game with a standard deck, for me the experience becomes all the more pleasant when I'm using a beautiful deck of cards. I also enjoy collecting decks of playing cards that have a high degree of customization, and are of a high quality all round. Fortunately such beautiful and rare artistic decks are readily available from online retailers, and my own favourite source is Rare Playing Cards. They sell hundreds of stunning decks of playing cards which are not easily found or purchased elsewhere. Not only are these playing cards of high quality card stock, but they also have many decks that are just the thing I love: vibrant colours and patterns.

And that's what this series of reviews is all about. I've picked some of my favourite decks of playing cards that showcase bright colours and engaging patterns. I love rainbows, I love colours, and I love arrangements of colours that are interesting and captivating, especially when colours and patterns are arranged in new or eye-catching ways. So let's show you some rare playing cards that I'm excited about, quality decks with colourful playfulness, colourful art, and colourful magic!

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* * * Rare Playing Cards with Colourful Cardistry * * *

For the next stop in our energetic and colourful tour, let's find some colourful decks that we can put in the hands of magicians and card flourishers, who can demonstrate something for us of the art of cardistry. Card flourishing has a long history in the magic industry, but in recent years cardistry is beginning to have an independent existence, and is starting to gain legitimacy as an art-form in its own right. But for best results, cardistry benefits from a deck of cards that is colourful and has striking patterns, which will enhance the visual aesthetics of card flourishing. And that's where these decks come in!

Memento Mori deck

The Memento Mori deck is a best seller that was created by noted magician and card flourisher Chris Ramsey. And it's not hard to understand why it is popular, once you've taken a look at this stunning deck that is bursting with visual beauty and colour, from the moment the embossed and colourful tuck box is in your hand. Check out this stunning fan photo:

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This deck is truly a card flourisher's dream come true, and is particularly well-suited for cardistry, and for performing visual moves like the one shown here.

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The beauty of this deck already begins already with the elegant tuck box. If you look closely you'll see that it has a wrap-around design, which makes up the picture of a skull. I'm not normally a fan of images featuring skulls, but in this case the cover design is more just about the colours and patterns this creates; in fact most people won't even realize that the artwork makes up a human head.

The title of this deck, Memento Mori, is Latin for "remember your mortality". The skull has long been used as a symbol of mortality, representing both the certainty of death as well as the beginning of life, so together the deck's name and its core image convey something about the fleeting nature of life.

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The card backs have a similar design to the box cover, and the fact that the coloured design only appears on the opposite corners gives possibilities for interesting visual effects when fanning or springing.

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The court cards have geometric patterns with lines and shapes that are a similar style to the artwork on the card backs and tuck box, with coloured shapes being a key feature of the design.

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This style corresponds closely to the colours and design of the card-backs.

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The number cards match this style as well. The Spades and Clubs have a palette dominated by the colour purple, while the Hearts and Diamonds have a vibrant palette dominated by the colour pink.

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For some people, the overlap of colours might make this a deck that isn't the most playable deck - although the indices are still clear enough if you did want to use it for playing games.

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But this deck will sparkle best in the hand of a card flourisher. Given Chris Ramsay's involvement in the creation of this deck, it's little wonder that it is a beautiful deck for cardistry!

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It sure looks beautiful on a table, and in action, and will especially appeal to the cardistry fan!

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Thick Lines deck

This next deck is great for card flourishing, and brings us back to the colourful times of the 1970s, those heady days of orange sofas and brown wall-paper.

The man behind the Thick Lines deck is noted designer Aaron Draplin, creator of the Fields Notes memo book company. He produced this deck in 2014.

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The design on the cards has a mirrored and playful design that is based on thick lines and seventies colours. In Aaron's words: "I wanted to make something that felt oddly “off.” Like, big, thick lines that just feel good in your hands."

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The effect of the colours on the card backs is amplified when fanned or ribbon spread, or when performing cuts, creating a fabulous visual display of colour and patterns!

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As for the court cards, these have been completely redone, in line with the Thick Lines theme of the deck.

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Even the pips have been re-designed, as is particularly evident here with the over-sized Aces.

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The Jokers give a visual reminder of the entire colour palette used in the deck.

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The two main colours are orange and brown, creating a real retro and throw-back feel. That means they might just match beautifully with your basement wallpaper, or the old shirt that resides in the back of your closet after you received it as a birthday gift in the 1980s.

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But this deck is at its best when creating blurs of colour - ideal for spreads and flourishes.

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It's also worth mentioning that a special box was produced for this deck - the Burgopak packaging system. It has a unique and innovative mechanism that seems to magically slide when opened or closed.

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And in case you're lost for ideas about what to do with this or any of the above decks, there's some helpful suggestions on the back of the Thick Lines deck box: "Multiple Uses: Passing Hard Time, Card Houses, Throwing, Cardistry, Loose Magic, Dimwitted Cons, Shuffling Stunts, Solitaire, Poker, War, Euchre, Gin Rummy, Go Fish, Blackjack, Pinochle, Spoke Flickers and Sketchy Sleights of Hand."

* * * Recommendation * * *

So are these colourful decks from Rare Playing Cards something for you? This isn't the first time I've sourced cards from Rare Playing Cards, and I continue to be impressed with the playing cards they offer, and the spectrum of colourful playing cards featured in this article has only confirms my conclusions:

Colour: I'll start with the obvious: there's a whole lot of colour on display here! There's something about colour that can produce a vibrant sense of energy, enthusiasm, excitement, and life. There's no doubt that the kinds of decks like the ones featured here produce similar results, as a result of the diverse and bright colours they use.

Patterns: Colour on its own is merely one element of design - it needs to be accompanied with an overall and pleasing aesthetic design, which makes good use of the canvas of a playing card. Designers need to consider carefully the effect of lines and patterns not only in terms of how a single card will look on its own, but also the cumulative effect of a series of cards when displayed in concert as part of a fan or spread, or when in motion. The striking and brightly coloured patterns on some of the card backs featured above are especially at their best when causing a cumulative effect in ribbon spreads and other moves, producing a stunning overall result.

Cardistry: Many of these decks were created for the explicit purpose of being used for card flourishers. Certainly card flourishers tend to be fussy about the decks that they use, and for good reason, since the visual aesthetics of their art-form will be magnified when combined with colours and patterns that accentuate the movement of cardistry. Decks like these are perfectly suited to this purpose, and these and many others make excellent choices for this art-form, especially because of their excellent use of colour and patterns.

Eye-catching: Many a deck of beautiful playing cards will catch the eye, but this will especially be the case when there is an eye-catching and colourful design. There's no doubt that playing cards like the ones here will be quickly noticed, and become an instant conversation piece when arriving on the game table.

Creative: I just love the creativity that has produced designs like these. The firecracker styled tuck box of the Firecracker deck; the amusing and cheeky charm of the Bosmind deck; the colourful geometrics of the Momento Mori deck; the explosive pinks and purples of the stellar Starlight decks; all these are the kinds of creativity that I love to see in a deck of playing cards, and really appreciate and enjoy.

Quality: The quality of these decks is consistently wonderful. These are not cheap quality playing cards like the ones you'd find in a corner store, but have been produced and printed by reputable printing companies like US Playing Card Company and Expert Playing Cards. There are all industry leaders, and respected for their consistently good card-stock and finishing, which proves to handle well and will be long-lasting.

If you're looking for an eye-catching and colourful deck of playing cards that is a looker on the table, and a quality product, the selection you'll find at Rare Playing Cards is hard to beat. It's great to discover stylish and stunning decks of playing cards that showcase the colour spectrum, and given that there's an extensive range of fun decks to choose from, almost everyone is going to find something that they'll love. I'm very pleased to recommend the decks I've featured in this review!

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What to learn more? Check out Rare Playing Cards

Direct links for the decks featured in this review series:
- Colourful Play: Brosmind deck, Drawing Scratch deck, Firecracker deck
- Colourful Cardistry: Memento Mori deck, Thick Lines deck
- Colourful Astronomy: Starlight Black Hole deck, Starlight Shooting Star deck
- Colourful Art: Mondrian deck, Red Stripe deck, Prime deck

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BoardGameGeek reviewer EndersGame => Playing Card Reviews <=>Magic Reviews <=> Board Game Reviews <=

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