The Blue Crown Ornate White Edition Playing Cards (Scarlet) by HOPC - Trick

I'm a bit late to this party, but I managed to snag one full set of these cards separately.This is one of the four un-branded (they don't have the Bicycle brand on the front) Ornate decks designed by Randy Butterfield of Midnight Card Company and produced by House Of Playing Cards; there are two other sets that are extremely rare now.These decks are beautiful, not just in design, but in color as well; probably the most colorful decks I have so far. Everything about them is custom, except the card stock, which is high quality Aristocrat card stock, made popular by the classic decks of the same name.The box is made of a coated card stock, and features original artwork on the front and the card back design on the back. There is a subtle embossing done on the front and back and the inside is covered in red foil.There are 56 cards in the deck, including two Jokers, with the two additional cards being a House Of Playing Cards ad card with a blue flourished background and one double-backer, with a red back and a half red/half blue back on the other side. The two Jokers are identical, except one has red and the other has blue. This color pair extends to the rest of the cards as well. The black suits have golden pips with blue bevels, and blue flourishes in the corners on the aces, while the red suits have silver pips and red bevels and flourishes.These decks were apparently designed in pairs, since the blue (Sapphire) and red (Scarlet) decks are identical except for the backs, and the green (Emerald) and purple (Amethyst) decks are likewise matched. In fact, the two jokers in each deck each have a different suit on their forehead, that match these pairings. This deck has a spade on the blue Joker and a diamond on the red one.The artwork is full bleed, and done smartly; where there would normally be a blank white border, Randy placed a graduated diamond pattern that matches on the front and backs. In the center of each side edge is a wheel design that's cut off at the edge, which looks pretty sharp when you have two cards side by side with about 1/8” gap between them, which visually completes the circle. This wheel also appears on both sides, so a card that's reversed will hide effectively in the deck. This bleed artwork also makes for some beautiful fans.As stated, the artwork is all new, and that includes the designs of the pips, which not only have a beveled look, but are also arranged in custom configurations. Similarly, the typeface used in the indexes is new as well. The background also feature a light pattern, with more of the flourished detail behind the Jokers and the diamond grad pattern found on the box is present in the background of the rest of the cards.The face cards also have all new artwork, featuring elegant side profiles, and two of the Jacks are depicted wearing armor.The amazingly detailed artwork on the backs is stunning and is presented in two different duo-toned colors, with a white frame and center flourish, and a red background flourish. The backs also exhibit a very slight one-way design element in the discs.The cards are standard cut (also occasionally called reverse cut), so these faro shuffle easily when the backs are angled slightly towards one another, but don't table faro well. The cards handle exceptionally well, and are very easy to read.