Quality Check: WJPCC, the early years

[rousselle]

This is a cross post, originally posted here:

https://unitedcardists.com/viewtopic.ph ... 20#p134520

I've relocated it here because I'd like to see this updated with comparisons to more recent WJPCC decks, so I decided to tease this out of it's previous thread. As more of our favorite card designers are using WJPCC, I feel this is particularly relevant.

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This is going to be a long post. You have been warned.

So, since I've posted here and elsewhere comments about various WJPCC decks in my collection, Sunish asked if I would share my thoughts about how the Bharata Series 2 deck compares to other WJPCC decks I've handled.

Toward that end, I decided to reacquaint myself with the decks in my collection that were manufactured by WJPCC. I picked the low-hanging fruit (ie, the ones which came immediately to mind), which are:

* RJ Tomlinson's Civil Unrest Gettysburg
* Montenzi's Haere Mai
* Montenzi's Hello Tiki
* Montenzi's NEO LTD
* Elephant Playing Cards' Elephants
* Guru's Bharata Series 2

I might have some others in my collection, but they elude me right at the moment.

One thing that all of these projects have in common is that they were all created by people whose work I truly appreciate. All of them have worked with other manufacturers, so there has also been an opportunity to compare their work as produced by multiple shops.

The first WJPCC project that I recall backing was the Civil Unrest Gettysburg series, when Robert Tomlinson decided to embark upon finding a manufacturer who was easier to work with than EPCC/LPCC and USPCC. The result was interesting. The card stock was amazingly sturdy, but the finish made for a deck that was clumpy and mostly bereft of "glide." The feel wasn't unpleasant (the way, I'm sad to say, NPCC's decks have tended to be for me, or Cartamuni's souvenir decks or MPC's smooth finish decks), and so I inserted one of these decks into my boys' and my rotation of nightly card game decks. Gotta say, the Gettysburg deck really took a beating, and still stayed true. After quite a bit of time in the rotation, the cards still have snap and the deck looks like it's received far less abuse than it actually has. Sturdy as hell, even if it was unable to fan even right out of the box.

Next came Montenzi's Haere Mai, which had full bleed backs and colors that really pop. And, wow, did these bad boys fan perfectly out of the box. Much thinner and lighter than Gettysburg, these cards were light and springy, and I swear the deck I opened would hold its own against any of my favorites printed by EPCC/LPCC. While these were sturdy, they weren't stiff like Gettysburg. I was so happy with this deck, I wanted to see more of my favorite creators going to WJPCC for their manufacturing.

The follow-up to Haere Mai, Hello Tiki, didn't fare as well. At least, the deck that I opened up. It fanned... okay-ish out of the box. Slightly stiffer stock. These were fine, I suppose, and certainly no worse than some output from EPCC/LPCC, but also no where near as good as some of the best from EPCC/LPCC. As far as manufacturing quality goes, this deck was a step backwards from Haere Mai. Not terrible, not by a long shot. And, nowhere near as clumpy as Gettysburg. But... yeah. They were okay. Great design, fine printing, kinda decent finish, and kinda decent stock, but... nothing to wow me the way its predecessor was.

Montenzi's NEO LTD feels like a half-step between Hello Tiki and Haere Mai. This one also has full bleed backs, which I love, but these backs reveal slight imperfections in the cutting registration that Haere Mai did not. These fan almost perfectly right out of the box, and they have a fascinating feel to them. Even if we classify this as only a half-step better than Hello Tiki, I *far* prefer NEO LTD to Hello Tiki in terms of manufacturing quality, and they only just barely fall short of the perfection that Haere Mai attained.

I want to pause here for a moment and re-iterate that all of these decks, I picked up because I truly appreciate the work done by their creators. In fact, one thing that all of these creators has in common (in addition to excellent design work) is their interest in taking bold risks to see what they can accomplish with their cards. Ben Jones of Elephant Playing Cards did some very innovative work with his Prism series (using "embossed" elements on the cards) and Pipmen (especially his Pipmen World design, which took his semi-transformation decks to a whole new level), and I was very interested to see how his approach to a "standard" deck would work out.

Unfortunately, the problem with the Elephants deck is WJPCC's work. This deck has a sturdiness and stiffness that is very much like the Gettysburg deck, but the clumpiness of the finish is even slightly worse than Gettysburg. This deck, manufacturing-wise, was not just a few steps back to where they started (for me), but perhaps a half a step back past that. It's one thing when the cards are a little clumpy, but unlike Gettysburg, these just didn't feel good enough in my hands to warrant making it into the nightly game rotation.

So, at last, we come to Bharata Series 2.

Since this deck is the reason I'm here writing all this, we are not only considering it in the context of other WJPCC decks, but also other Guru Playing Card Company decks. This is the first deck by Guru that I have that isn't gilded. Gilded decks are more likely to be clumpy and difficult to fan, and yet the feeling of the Divine Art deck was so compelling that, despite this being a somewhat pricey deck, I was still happy to expose it to my sons' inexpert hands in our nightly card games (and it has held up just fine). The first Bharata deck, also gilded, also a little clumpy, also felt totally fine in my hands (although, since Divine Art remains in rotation to this day, I did not add this one to the mix out of fear of being a little redundant.) Because Sunish asked for my thoughts on the Series 2 deck, I decided to add this most recent deck to our nightly rotation and see what happened.

Out of the box, Bharata Series 2 fans far better than its gilded predecessor from Guru and far better than Gettysburg and Elephant. I dare say, however, that it did not fan better out of the box than Hello Tiki did, although it might be fair to say it fanned about as well. NEO LTD and Haere Mai fanned far better out of the box, at least with regard to the single decks of each that I opened.

Quick side note: as should be obvious with our experience with Jackson Robinson's Legal Tender decks, and as I also had first hand experience with LPCC's Serpentine decks, you can sometimes have two decks from the same project behave completely differently out of the box. That issue may be more confined to EPCC/LPCC's China facility than to other manufacturers'. But, even so, I have to give the benefit of the doubt and say that my experience opening one deck in Seattle may produce different results from someone else opening up a different deck from the same run in some other part of the world.

Anyway.

While out-of-the-box fanning was mildly clumpy and did not improve for me with breaking in, the *feel* and slipperiness of the deck is really quite excellent. The cards are snappy and sturdy without being stiff. The finish has enough slipperiness to make the game play experience top notch. After repeated use for a couple weeks of our nightly games, the deck still holds up as near-new, which cannot be said of most decks we put through the paces.

This is one of WJPCC's thicker decks, but it is far more forgiving than any of WJPCC's other thick decks (particularly Gettysburg and Elephant). I rather like this stock a lot; I like the spring and snap. Not too supple, not too stiff. And, while I don't find the finish as close to perfection as Haere Mai or NEO LTD, I still like it a lot. I will also note that the printing quality, both with regard to color saturation and registration, is aces. The cut is fantastic, and the cards continue to retain their sharp edges.

Allow me to conclude with this:

This deck is a great addition to the Guru Playing Cards line-up. It is also a great addition to the WJPCC line-up. While it's handling is far superior to other Guru decks, you still can't beat Divine Art for setting the bar high with such durable, gilded, and foiled cards. On the WJPCC side, it sets an excellent balance between sturdiness and playability, slipperiness and resilience, and yet, I still have to favor Haere Mai as the high-water mark for WJPCC thus far.

I'm not surprised at the warm reception Bharata Series 2 is receiving. But, I wish WJPCC showed more consistent improvement from project to project rather than jumping back and forth between excellent results and... Elephants.

[montenzi]

Good research, @rousselle !

The reason why their new decks are much better than the old ones - they bought a new cutting machine and improved coating. In the past, there was a bevel on the cards' edges. Now, the edges are perfect and smooth. Also, they finally use one stock and offer two finishes. I'll try WJPCC again for my No.7 Winter Edition. Let's see

[EndersGame]

Toward that end, I decided to reacquaint myself with the decks in my collection that were manufactured by WJPCC. I picked the low-hanging fruit (ie, the ones which came immediately to mind), which are:
* Montenzi's NEO LTD

Montenzi's NEO LTD feels like a half-step between Hello Tiki and Haere Mai. This one also has full bleed backs, which I love, but these backs reveal slight imperfections in the cutting registration that Haere Mai did not. These fan almost perfectly right out of the box, and they have a fascinating feel to them. Even if we classify this as only a half-step better than Hello Tiki, I *far* prefer NEO LTD to Hello Tiki in terms of manufacturing quality, and they only just barely fall short of the perfection that Haere Mai attained.

This is a terrific post, thank you for sharing your observations in such great detail @rousselle. I'm currently doing some research into WJPC decks, and how they stand up to decks printed by other companies, so this was very helpful.

Are you absolutely sure the NEO Ltd deck was printed by WJPC? I contacted WJPC to ask them what stock/finish this particular deck was, and they told me it wasn't one that they printed.

I know that this is what they advertised on the Kickstarter, but the tuck box doesn't say WJPC anywhere.

What's more, the cards feel quite different from the other WJPC decks I have. They fan well enough, but the cut of the cards is totally smooth. I think it's been done by a laser rather than traditional cutting methods, and the result is that you can't faro the cards at all.

So, was the NEO Ltd even a WJPC printed deck?

NB: I've asked a similar question in the thread about the Neo deck here.

[kasuma99]

This is great, the only WJPC decks i have in my collection have all came from Stockholm17 - Lorenzo, until now there are 3 decks of his i know of that use WJPC:
- QuarterMaster
- Oddfellow Patronium
- Gambling Frog Patreon Ed

The later 2 are still on their way to me so i can't say anything about them but my experience with Quartermaster has been great, the cards fan smoothly right out of the box, while being a bit thicker and stiffer than a normal USPCC standard deck, i felt they are perfect for springing, riffling and was able to do multiple rotations riffle fan with them. I would rate the smoothness is just a bit under standard USPCC and stiffness is very similar to EPCC premium stock (same as Le Chat Rouge, Gemini) while softer than a Heretic deck.
I would love to try out more WJPC decks in the future if they are on par or improved compare to what i have right now!

[rousselle]

I'm going to say that, yes, I'm pretty sure that NEO Ltd was manufactured by WJPC, at least insofar as Montenzi had said it was and his note above (which immediately followed mine) did not correct me on that point, and he did say in his note that it was well researched. I seem to recall I had also had a few independent conversations here and there with both him and others, but it's been years now, so I don't recall clearly enough to be absolutely certain.

One thing I do recall amongst various conversations is that WJPC was, at least for a while, all over the place in terms of paper and finish, and at least a couple of the producers I spoke with had said they couldn't seem to get the same paper twice. IIRC, however, Montenzi and Guru were the most successful at getting the results out of them that they wanted. RJ Tomlinson had fruitful conversations with them at the beginning, but (again, if I remember correctly) eventually, they just proved to be too erratic.

[EndersGame]

I have the Bharata V2 deck by Guru, which was printed by WJPC, and that's really quite good. I also have the Zoo 52 decks by Elephant Playing Cards, which were also printed by WJPC, and theyr'e also quite nice.

It's just the Neo Ltd which looks and feels quite different, and that (plus what WJPC themselves told me when I asked about it) makes me think perhaps that particular deck wasn't printed by WJPC after all.

If we can get any confirmation one way or the other on that from Montenzi, that would be great.

[EndersGame]

Sorry for the double post, but I have an update about the Neo Ltd deck which gives a definitive answer from Montenzi, explaining why this deck feels very different and why it can't be faroed. Basically the Neo Lt was not cut using WJPC's normal machines, because it used an experimental paper stock that this wasn't possible with.

Montenzi kindly provided this answer in this post:

This deck was printed by WJPC. They bought some experimental paper, and it was hard to cut and apply an air cushion finish. Their machines were not set up for such a paper, so this deck was printed using two sheets (half of the deck on each) with 90 degrees rotation. Otherwise, they were not able to cut it properly, and it was a risk of damaging the machine. It is what it is. Faro is almost impossible.

IMHO the results were indeed poor (not Montenzi's fault). But this was evidently an experimental paper that is not part of WJPC's regular product line, so it wouldn't be fair to consider it a card stock and printing method WJPC normally uses, or judge their typical decks based on this single outlier.

[EndersGame]

Time for an update. I've written a detailed article about WJPC, that covers some of their decks and discusses the quality of what they produce.

If you're interested in checking it out, you will find it here:

Playing Card Manufacturer: Shenzhen Wangjing Printing Company (WJPC)