Take the red pill.

I somewhat agree. But if u are gonna drop the amount we drop on chips then a nice plastic deck comes hand in hand, no?

I mean even just a deck of the plastic prestige decks at a minimum...

Oh yes. I totally agree. I don't like playing with paper cards at all. But if I had to choose . . . I'd take the chips over the cards.

LOL don't choose, buy one of everything...

OP, I haven't bought any new cards in months, so I'm pretty much due for a new set-up. Looking forward to the Desjgn's review, might have to pick up a set of the Modiano PA's as well.

Modianos are by far the best cards available today. The Platinum Acetates are the best Modiano has to offer. Kems are way over-priced, and imo no longer what they once were. Pre USPC Kems are still a good buy, when you can find them. Copags, as stated in the OP, are the best "value" card. Desjgn cards are right there, too, but I do not have a long enough record of usage with them to comment further. Other great products include Fourniers (Spanish), Dal Negors (Italy), and Carta Mundis (USA, iirc). Almost forgot Piatnik out of Austria.

Dug, you will not be disappointed with the Desjgns. They are an ecellent card for the price. The only caveat is that some people fing the unique pip patterns a bit difficult to get used to. Four pips in a straight line can mistaken for a 3 if someone is not paying enough attention, or has had a few. Once you get past that, no issues. Modiano Platinum Acetates are simply the best card availabloe right now . . . enjoy.

Fournier

This is another brand that is owned by the USPCC. It is interesting to note that the Bicycle Prestige cards are manufactured by Fournier in Spain and re-branded for sale in the United States. Fournier cards have a reputation of being of very high quality.

Fournier cards are thin and flexible. They retain a good amount of snap and have a textured surface. The print quality of these decks is amongst the finest. The back patterns tend to be intricate along with rich color on the face of the cards. Style options are mostly the traditional standard and jumbo indexes, however poker peeks and four index cards are also available. Prices range from $15-$25 per setup.

Dal Negro

These are the last of the Italian cards that I will be talking about. They are also fairly uncommon here in the States and are used in several European casinos.

Dal Negros are a thicker card with plenty of snap. Their glossy finish feels great but does make them a touch slippery when handling. Print quality is high on these cards with rich colors and detailed face cards. The Freedom X cards offer a unique X-Ray index which puts the rank inside the suit on the corner of the cards. This interesting idea was executed poorly as the special index was put on the right hand corner which makes using them feel awkward. Setups will be around $25.


From Top to bottom: Dal Negro Freedom X - X-Ray index, Dal Negro Torcello - four index, Fournier Party Poker - jumbo index, and Fournier Alfombras - jumbo index.

Palindrome, we could be related, at least as far as the "sickness" is concerned. Do you have any Piatniks in your collection? Looking for some Zeros, or Angel cards at some point, but you know how difficult the last ones can be to get . . .


Solid reviews, without letting your opinions colour your thoughts. WP

Those are three brands that I do not have. I have heard good things about the Piatniks. The Zeros are really hard to come by. You have to have someone in Europe who is willing to buy and ship them to you. You're right, I have no idea how to get any Angel cards.

Thanks! I'm going to try and wrap it up today. I need to get some better pictures of the Desjgn cards and then write up a comparison list/matrix/chart thingy.

Desjgn

These cards are the product of a complete redesign of the the classic playing card. Everything from the shape of the pips, look of the faces, and even the arrangement of the pips was redone.

Desjgn cards have a thinner feel to them with a slight surface texture. They are a well balanced card, with a good amount of snap and flexibility. The quality of the printing is very good and the fresh design is interesting to look at. However, the new arrangement of the pips will bother some people. These are a new addition to my collection so I will have to put them throught the paces before I can tell you more. A setup will cost you around $15-$20.


These are the Classic Victorians. You can see the new face cards and pip arrangements.

Attribute Comparison

Ask players about what the "best" card is and you will get many answers. It is hard to determine what the "best" really is. I prefer to think it is more a matter of which deck best suits your preferences and game. I tend to enjoy a little variety so I switch it up every game. Here is where I think they fall.

Thickness: thickest to thinnest

1. Modiano
2. Dal Negro
3. NTP
4. Fournier
5. Desjgn
6. COPAG
7. KEM

Flexibility: flexible to stiff

1. KEM
2. Fournier
3. COPAG
4. Desjgn
5. NTP
6. Dal Negro
7. Modiano

Snap: more to less

1. Dal Negro
2. Fournier
3. NTP
4. Desjgn
5. COPAGS
6. Modianos
7. KEM

How about durability? Which cards seem to last the longest/retain their attributes/are easiest or hardest to damage?

Print Quality

This is really subjective in my mind so here are some pictures of the king of hearts from all the brands. This is also somewhat hard to gauge as there are disparities betweens decks from the same manufacturer depending on the style.


Left to right: Dal Negro Freedom X, Fournier Tribus, and NTP Texas Hold'em.


Left to right: Desjgn Classic Victorian and KEM Arrow.


Left to right: COPAG 1546 and Modiano Black Jack.

I find this question hard to answer too. So far the only decks I have gotten rid of have been Modianos but they were taken camping and got way more abuse that way. All the brands wear so well that when you rotate out decks like I do it's hard to remember if you got 30 sessions out of one versus 25 out of the other. From my experiences, I have found that stiffer decks have problems with creasing and that will foul a deck faster than anything else.

Copags have a reputation for having the ink fade/wear more rapidly then other (more $$$) brands. I have not noticed this myself but do not play on a daily basis, either, so ymmv. After five years of rotational play, I have not noticed any issues with my collection, which is similar to Palindrome's in both size and scope (25-40 set-ups, or thereabouts). All things considered I think there is not much I would dispute in the rankings provided. I am assuming that by "snap" you are referring to how quickly a card goes back to flat after bending. Your rankings make sense that way as a thicker card takes a little longer to snap back. The only set-up I ever had an issue with were Gemaco Sextants. Once those suckers bowed there was no straighhtening them out, and I tried multiple methods. I recently decided to give Gemaco a second chance and bought a set-up of theiur new product line - super-flex. A very nice card, like a new Kem but not the same price point. Only used twice, so the jury is still out.



Palindrome, the Piatnik's (Austria) are a nice card, very similar to the Dal Negros, though slightly thinner. Ace of Spades is rather meh, but the court cards and back designs make up for it. Too chicken to pull the trigger on the Zeros when I had a shot at a Group-buy, regretted it ever since. The Angels are Australian, I think, and only sold to casino trade at the moment, but that info. is a year old, so things might have changed.

Other than the ink issues I mentioned earlier, the thing I find destroys a card faster than anything else is idiots who will damage a card in the following way:

Player will place a chip on their card to protect it. Then, when it is their turn to act, they will press down on said chip while folding their cards up to peek, leaving a crease in the card as a result. Does not happen all the time, just when the player is what I like to call "heavy-handed". Hard to impossible to remove those creases, too. Banned one player from my games, as he would not change his ways even after being shown proof. His response was, "buy better cards". Mine was, "find a new game"

That being said, I have found the Modianos to be the most "durable" (camping? really?), followed by the Fourniers and the Carta Mundis. Copag and Desjgn are about even in fourth place.

Makes me want to break out my gear just talking about it.

+1 to Copag's color fading, but with the price point I can overlook it. I have 2 Copag setups that are 3-4 years old, and are in perfect condition besides the color fade.

Interesting. I have noticed what I call "fingernail indents" in a few of my cards (notably my KEMs and DaVinci's), small semi-circular impressions about 1/2" long. I wonder it it could be from this...

DING-DING-DING tell him what he's won, Johnnie.

Seriously, take a couple orbits at the start of your next game, and watch the players who use a chip to cover their cards.

Okay, all this card talk has made me pull out the stash and take inventory:
Modianos - poker sized

Platinum Acetate - 2 set-ups
Cristallos - 1 set-up
Full Bleed "peeks" - 1 set-up
Snowflake - 1 set-up
Bicycle - 1 set-up
Poker Club - 1 set-up
Black-Jack - 1 set-up
Trophy - 1 set-up
"Old" Trophy - 1 set-up

Bridge sized

Trophy - 1 set-up
Beehive - 1 set-up

Copags - Poker sized

1546's - 3 set-ups
Casino - 1 set-up

Bridge sized

1546 - 1 set-up
Aldrava - 1 set-up

Kem - Bridge sized

Circle Backs - 1 set-up
Casino Pro - 3 set-ups
WSOP 2009 - 1 set-up

All, except the WSOP set-up, are pre-USPC.

Miscellaneous

Fournier 2818 - 1 set-up (P)
DalNegro Torcellos - 2 set-ups (P)
USPC Prestige dura-flex - 1 set-up (P)
Piatniks - 1 set-up (P)
Desjgn Classics - 1 set-up (P)
Fournier "peeks" - 1 set-up (B)
Carta Mundi Casino - 1 set-up (B)
Gemaco Super-flex - 1 set-up (B)
Dal Negro Torcello Blancos - 1 deck (P)

Most interesting item in my collection is a set-up of Playboy Club Playmate cards. These are 100% plastic playing cards. Each deck features 1 playmate for the whole deck (1 pose), and standard faces, pips, etc. They came to me from my wife's late Uncle in Idaho. We lost him last December, and my Mother-in-Law went down in the spring to see her Sister (the Widow). Long story short, she was told to pick something for each of the "kids" back home to have a token to remember him by and, knowing I play poker, she grabbed the cards, thinking the Playboy aspect would be funny. What little looking around I have done seems to indicate that these are fairly unique, as most of the nudie cards produced were paper. They do not use the traditional Kem Ace of Spades, but Kem is the only maker I have heard of that made plastic cards of Playboy. Starting to think that maybe these were actually from a Playboy "Club" somewhere. Regardless they are an interesting conversation item.

In total, I am currently sitting with 32 set-ups (not counting the Playboy set-up), and two miscellaneous set-ups (logoed giveaway cards).

I think I need some more.

I have several setups of bridge-sized Kems (post USPC) and Modianos. We like 'em both, and use them equally in our home game (i.e., one week we'll play with Kems, the next week Mods, etc).

My sentimental favorite is the bridge-sized Kems, since these are the cards I've played with most often over years in public cardrooms. I like the slickness and the flexibility...I find them easier to shuffle smoothly and elegantly.

Objectively, however, I rather think the Modianos are the better card, and I think they're a slight favorite among my players as well. Their texture feels good, and they don't warp like the Kems. One thing I noticed...when I first introduced the Mods, some folks griped because the red ink is pretty dark. We happened to be playing at the time at a long skinny table...folks at the ends didn't like how dark the red was, said it was hard to see what the suits were (please hold the obvious comments here...I'll just say this was a really juicy game).

My biggest reservation with the Kems...I've had to pull several cards out of use because of irregularities on the back patterns; hate to say it, but if you want two good set-ups, you need to order three, because you may have to replace a couple of cards. They also warp, as previously mentioned in other posts.

Other than the dark red ink (to which players quickly became accustomed, not a longterm issue), I've noticed that Modianos will very occasionally *rip* a little...I've had to replace two Mods for this; never seen a Kem do that.

We've also played with Copags and Davincis; also great cards. I haven't seen them in bridge size though, which I much prefer for ease of handling.

All in all, going forward for my next batch of setups, I'll probably get several more Modianos...much as I would like to go with the Kems.

I won something?!? YEAY!!!!!!

Thanks for this info, I will for sure be watching for that in the future.

Just curious if you're refering to the Platinum Acetates, or the entire Modiano line. I have one setup of Modiano Bicyles, and nobody really cares for them. They also showed up with a pretty good bow in the deck which I've been unable to get out...

Coffee cup bath, ftw . . .

Mmm...I don't think these are the platinum acetates. There's nothing on the box that indicates such...just says "Modiano - 100% plastic - bridge size - double deck". If the platinums are their "flagship", I'd think there'd be something on the box that indicates such.

I didn't know about the platinum acetates when I ordered these, so I wasn't looking for that. I figure they're probably just "plain ol' Modianos".

Still pretty good cards.

Yep - our dear departed Kitteh used to complain about this happening constantly in his games. He believed that some players may have been intentionally marking the cards in this way.

While it's not necessarily intentional in your game, it's still a good idea to find out who is doing it and ask them to stop - plastics are not economical when they have to be replaced every session.

Sounds like they're either the Poker Club line, or the Texas Poker variety from Modiano. Both are the same manufacturing quality, but are the economy line from Modiano. Platinums are marked on the packaging, as are the Cristallos.