Hello everyone, Matt Homer here and in today’s playing card review, I shall be taking a look at the Dynamo Abandoned playing cards designed by Rick Davidson, for the infamous street magician Dynamo in conjunction with his “Abandoned Room Show”, I will give my honest, unbiased opinion based on my experience and love for the pasteboards. There is no question that Dynamo is a leading authority within the street magic scene, it’s time to see if his playing cards live up to everyone’s expectations!
Starting with the design, the tuck box is undeniably stunning, the gold and electric blue create an extremely visual contrast that immediately catches the eye, both of these colours are metallic meaning they glisten in the light. The entire design, every bit of detail, is embossed upon a matte textured box, this creates a luxurious aura to the cards both visually and tactilely.
The detail on the box is phenomenal, the more you look the more you discover, both the front and back designs of the tuck box are extremely elegant, featuring exquisite detail that you could study for hours, the right side of the box features some intriguing co-ordinates which I shall leave for you to decode, the left side features a quote which reads, “I could not rest by night or day for dreaming golden dreams”, this quote is full of insight and up to the reader to interpret.
Excluding the court cards, ace of spades and the jokers, the cards feature a standard face design with a very minimal tweak in colour to that of a regular bicycle deck. This could be viewed as a positive or negative thing depending on your area of expertise, for magicians the standard faces are perfect, card collectors and cardists may wish for something more extravagant, it merely comes down to personal taste and for magicians, performing practicality.
I mentioned that the Abandoned playing cards court cards, ace of spades and jokers are different, let’s take a look. All four suits of court cards(J-K) feature the same colourway, once again it is a metallic turquoise and gold design with the pips being untouched. The ace of spades is excellent, it is an elegant design featuring the metallic gold once again with a room contained within the ace, it continues to conform to the aesthetic of the deck and to the classical look of the ace of spades. The Jokers are two keys, they are not identical, mild differences occur such as the orientation of parts and the pip text colour, for magicians this isn’t ideal.
There are two extra cards within the Abandoned playing cards deck, one contains a poem suggesting there is more to it than meets the eye and the other is a red and gold, what seems to be a Red Herring, literally. I will be honest in saying I have no idea what the Herring is doing here, I can only assume it is a reference to something I am unfamiliar with, nevertheless, it’s a unique card just waiting for the card collectors to discover! The magicians, and/or cardists amongst you may be disappointed with the extra cards, let’s be honest, for us these two pose no practical value – it raises the question of, would a blank card or a double backer have been better which in return raises another question, do you use these gaffs enough to care?
Moving onto the feel and quality of the cards, they are printed on a true linen B9 Slimline paper by Cartamundi. Upon testing the cards out, they handle and feel good, they are soft cards to handle and also very flexible, this could be seen as a positive by some and a negative by others, thick cards often last longer than thin cards, it depends on how much you are going to properly use these and the rate at which you practice, I would certainly lean away from these for everyday practice otherwise practice suddenly becomes very expensive! As an individual I tend to use cards printed by USPCC, however, despite how good they feel, USPCC cards are prone to alignment issues, cartamundi cards feel great and shouldn’t, fingers crossed, have so many printing errors.
In terms of practicality, it varies per individual and what you would be buying these cards for. My honest opinion is if you are a magician wanting to practice and perform with these cards, buy something cheaper like a regular deck of Bicycles, however, for card collectors you simply cannot go wrong with this deck, it is elegant, detailed, unique, they handle great, what’s not to love! I am sure cardists would love this deck too but it’s hard for me to comment, each cardist has their own personal style and design preference, that’s something only you can answer!
In conclusion, the Abandoned Playing Cards deck is wonderful and it comes with my utmost recommendation, the deck ticks all of my criteria, I won’t be performing with this deck, nothing to say you can’t, but from a collectors stance it is simply wonderful and that is my honest opinion, buy this deck – you’ll love it! it will certainly be getting pride of place on my display, how about yours? Let me know your thoughts on the review and the cards down below!
Thank you for reading and I truly hope this review provided the insight you were after,
Matt Homer
Stockists:
Merchant of Magic Stock Abandoned Playing Cards Here
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