Lee McKenzie has been designing cards for magic company Ellusionist for the past 5 years and it’s been a great experience for him. But he has always dreamed of launching his own deck one day. So the day has come. He represents his own playing card project on Kickstarter – Empire Playing Cards. The deck IS planned to be printed by USPCC.

Golden ink on the tuck case. 

Lee is based in the UK and all rewards are in UK currency (£), Empire is open to everyone around the world. Everything will be made and shipped from the US, so US shipping is already included. Everywhere outside the US is considered International.

Secret Design Features:

• Both the back design and faces have that centre edging detail. So to have any reversed cards in the deck is no problem – they will still be very difficult to identify at a glance.
• The edge detail also holds an incredibly subtle one-way feature that a trained eye will have at their disposal.
• The mischievous Jokers can also be used as a creative revealing tool for magicians.
• Empire will also come with a utility card (‘DB’) useful for card magic  or even as a cut card for poker, bridge or any other games.

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You could pledge here: http://kck.st/11QXo4W 

[FUNDED – Jul 18, 2013]

This project will only be funded if at least £9,030 is pledged by Thursday Jul 18, 4:00pm EDT.

The Ace of Spades

Aces (custom pips)

Court Cards

Number Cards

Jokers

Back Design

Ad Card

Card Clip

Proceeding from the overall aesthetics of the deck and the card clip I have to think that this deck is a specific mix of Lee’s experience of designing decks for Ellusionist and his impression of heraldry, the British Empire and the Roman Empire (or more exactly gladiators… or more exactly Gladiator with Russell Crowe :)). Affectedness of this deck is equal to quantity of nice custom elements in it so I guess the balance is maintained 😉