Fig. 25 Playing Cards is a detailed tribute to Erdnase and the infamous Expert at the Card Table book. Not only do the decks include illustrations from the book, each deck is uniquely wrapped to look like a mini replica Expert at the Card Table book.
The cards themselves are elegant, having custom back designs with METALLIC inks.
Why are they called Fig. 25?
S.W. Erdnase stated that the most important "artifice" one could master with a deck of playing cards is the bottom deal. The M.D. Smith illustration for this invaluable lesson is fig. 25.
The Back Design
Fig. 25 illustration is tastefully incorporated into the back design. The floral back design frames the illustration with acorns, a symbol from the book's original 1902 cover.
Card Stock and Finish
The cards are printed on the highest quality Bee card stock as is used by casinos around the world.
Traditional Cut
The deck is cut using the "Traditional" cut method made famous by Richard Turner. This is the method preferred by professionals for the precise handling and shuffling of the cards.
Custom Jokers and Ace of Spades
The custom Jokers use imagery from the deck's floral back design, along with two of the most popular and famous quotes from the book (one of them regarding the bottom deal's importance).
The Ace of Spades: The shape of the "Spade" is modeled after the Ace of Spades from the "Bicycle Spectrum Playing Deck," which is also the Logo for the Spectrum Playing Cards LLC.
The Ace also contains copyright information and the company name using actual typeface from the Expert at the Card Table book.
The Faces
The original intention was to place the various illustrations by The M.D. Smith throughout the deck until Mark Calabrese, an Erdnase aficionado as well as a highly skilled sleight of hand artist, had a brilliant idea:
Imagine cutting the shape of a card directly from the pages of the book... and then printing each page on EVERY card! GENIUS!
The result is the most detailed and TRUE TRIBUTE DECK to Erdnase, EVER designed!
EACH page was scanned at high resolution, carefully placed for aesthetics, one card at a time, and then meticulously lightened and colorized in a sepia tone to balance out the contrast of the image.