Ever since the wonderful Ellusionist Vintage 1800s there have been any number of decks which adopt this approach.

But I still love the idea – especially for story-telling type effects or slightly more bizarre magic.

So enter the rather lovely Bicycle Expert Deck.  As you can see, it has a rather attractive back design – first printed in 1895.

The faces of the cards have all been individually weathered – which makes for a very interesting display.

The backs, however, all have the same weathering (i.e. are identical) – which gives an effect more like a fanning deck!  Of course you have to ‘suspend your belief’ when you are using ‘aged’ cards – but this does slightly spoil the effect.

However, I like the back design a lot – the penny farthing type bicycles are displayed in four small circles and there is a pleasing leaf-work design over the rest of the card.

They handle beautifully as you would expect and would be ideal in any magic routine or cardistry display.

As ever, with aged cards, if you are performing you need to watch lighting and your spectators’ eyesight – especially if you want them to identify cards in the course of the trick.  But we think this is a nice little deck.  Only £5 at MAPro Magic (who kindly supplied a review copy).

The post Bicycle Expert Deck – review appeared first on Bicycle Cards.