LUMINOSITY: The Kingdom of Light by Black Ink Branded / Jody Eklund

[BaconWise]

I'm in for the pair and very excited to see these up close.

I'm curious: did you change the exclusive tuck to blue or am I losing my mind and it was always blue? I initially backed out because the tucks were the same color. Then I checked a couple of weeks ago and saw the KS exclusive was matte blue! Awesome!

Either way, congrats Jody!

[TheGentlemanWake]

Congrats Jody! Another epic finish! $145k is reeeeeally close to Parlour. Whew.

Two all time high (top 12) playing card campaigns in the same month! That's crazy.

[portcullis]

It might just be down to weight of numbers, but my pledge remains uncollected (despite being backer #7*). I'll give it a few days to sort itself out, I'm just making sure I'm not alone.


*I know backer # really has nothing to do with when the pledges are collected, just weird it remains uncollected and I haven't received a "Please fix your payment method" email.

Edit: Went through this morning. All good.

[STLBluesNut]

I just got these in today. I have to say the copper foil is amazing. It even had a pattern to it on the embossing. An amazing tuck.


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[STLBluesNut]

Oh, the bottom seal is fabulous! You know I had to mention it.

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[STLBluesNut]

Sorry for the triple post but I just opened this deck as well. The metallic ink on the backs, the copper metallic ink on the fronts and the dual courts! Along with the outstanding tuck.

This deck is getting a DOTY nomination from me. Absolutely awesome job, Jody!

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[BaconWise]

I might get mine later this week. It's usually three or four days after everyone receives theirs. I am so stoked that it's living up to my hopes that it will be Doty-worthy. Thanks for sharing!

[portcullis]

It's usually three or four days after everyone receives theirs.

*laughs in Australian*

[Harvonsgard]

Oh, the bottom seal is fabulous! You know I had to mention it.

I love you just for that.

[Adonael]

I will definitely be looking to pick up one of the blue decks when I have money again next year, these turned out awesome.

[Bradius]

My package of Luminosity rewards finally came in. I wish all of them were mine, but I owe several of the gilded decks to some other UC members that went in with me for a brick of the gilded decks. (a brick of gilded was $240, or just $20 each). I also added a coin and the booklet. Just glancing at the booklet, I am glad I added it to the order.

IMG_0196[1].JPG (88.26 KiB) Viewed 5057 times

[macstrat]

Full Deck Scans:
Standard - https://www.flickr.com/photos/167981955 ... 2229896742" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Limited - https://www.flickr.com/photos/167981955 ... 2231275328" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[justplaycards]

So what's the story with the Exclusive?

I thought it was supposed to be exclusive to Kickstarter. Seems to also be exclusive to Jody's site and Murphy's Magic as well .

https://www.murphysmagic.com/product.aspx?id=64780

[Bradius]

Yeah, that actually bums me unless they bought them through Kickstarter, but I am seriously doubting that happened. Likely they picked up the extras that were unsold. Still, that kinda doesn't make it a "Kickstarter Exclusive" anymore.

All said though, this is one of my favorite decks this year.

[Harvonsgard]

Lies, lies, lies. Beautiful lies

It is always a bummer if one doesn't keep his word. Not a good business practice and might cost support and/or customers. I wouldn't advise it and would even strongly suggest to stick to your f**king word. Come on guys, It is not that hard!
That said, my despise for all this fake exclusivity is larger. So I don't really mind it in that case. Still a no no, but if the trick works it is the fault of the tricked one and not the fault of the trickster. Stop demanding exclusivity and folks will stop to promise you exclusivity.

[justplaycards]

It's not so much that people want exclusivity and limited editions all the time. It's more the fact that some of us have to juggle our finances. So if there is a deck that states it won't be available later via general retail, it kind of forces you to back the campaign if you want the complete set. Or obviously pay ebay reseller prices.

I teamed up with someone as well so never got the usual updates via email. I honestly thought there might be a reason for this I just hadn't heard?

[Harvonsgard]

It's not so much that people want exclusivity and limited editions all the time. It's more the fact that some of us have to juggle our finances.

Me included (you know me ) and I knew this point would come up. It is a more than just a valid point and I'm on you with this one. This is why I wrote it is not okay to do it and it isn't good business practice. I just don't mind it that much.

My above post shouldn't be read as an excuse for project founders, more as an encouragement to drop such claims and for the consumer/customer to be aware that nothing which is promised is ironclad. Which again, is unfortunate but it is what it is.

Project founders shouldn't use the pressure to get funded as an excuse to not stick to their claims!

[Harvonsgard]

Haven't decided yet to get the "kickstarter" edition or the luxury edition. The luxury one is gilded, right?

[Bradius]

Yes. The Luxury Deck is the one that is gilded. It has a copper gilding that is gorgeous and works great with the deck design and colors. the Luxury decks were limited to 1,600.

[Timmargh]

The final stretch of the road to owning the Luminosity set has not been fun.

1. My original package never arrived - it went from "Your item departed a transfer airport in HEATHROW" on the USPS site to "We have no [CENSORED] idea what you are talking about" on the Royal Mail site. I messaged Jody and he had a new package sent.

2. My replacement package arrived with no customs charge (yay) but was missing two decks (boo). I messaged Jody again and he sent the replacement decks himself - I received a shipping notification less than an hour after sending my message.

3. The third and (hopefully) final package is at my local depot ... and I have just had to pay a £ 20 customs charge. Typical.

I'm just glad that the blows are softened by Jody's helpfulness and professionalism; thank you, Jody.

[Decknowledgy]

This is an interesting take by Nicolai, who's insisted to stick with NPCC. I quite agree with him that in terms of artwork precision, NPCC is actually at the top of the game. It's just that NPCC's handling has never found favor among card collectors, despite some recent decks having better handling quality. Here's Nicolai's post: https://www.instagram.com/p/B-e-5DXHEV4/

Why I stick with NPPC as my choice of printer? Well, here’s another example why I sometimes claim that in some aspects NPCC actually excel in comparison to USPCC, LPCC, EPCC or Cartamundi. Not in all, but in SOME.

Obviously I am not stating that this is the usual standard to be expected from USPCC, I am just saying that in cases such as this I really would have hoped that SOMEONE from USPCC had reached out to Jody and said ‘Hey, I am sorry, but there is no way our printer will register such microscopic details in your foil pattern. We recommend that you edit the artwork’. Apparently no one did, resulting in a big blob of copper foil on the panels of the Luminosity decks and far from the beautiful design intension of the wonderful Jody Eklund.

NPCC care about the end result of their decks. They continuously make an effort to improve their technical capabilities, but to this day they still do not suffer from being such a large company that they let such oversights slip through their quality inspections. All companies have strengths and weaknesses, that is point I want to make with this example.

All in all, I am always verifying every printer before a new project and base my decision on the overall score. Every company have something to approve upon and luckily they all seem to acknowledge this opinion with admirable recognition.

USPCC's registration issue is really a significant problem, and they don't seem to care, for instance.

[Bradius]

I get the point he is making. I get the registration issue. However, in most cases cards that handle poorly, handle poorly in every deck, not just some. I don't see poor registration issues in all of my USPCC decks. I am also not a fan of USPCC's metallux process because of the inconsistent results (which affects most of the cards). In general, I will take poor registration (within limits) over poor handling. From all the decks I have handled from NPCC, their card handling just isn't close and I haven't seen it improving like I have say with MPC and some others. I'll still buy occasionally decks produced by NPCC, and I would love to see their card handling improve. The more competition and companies able to produce quality playing cards, the better, as far as I am concerned as a card collecting consumer.

[guru]

I responded on Nicolai's IG, seems like he made some assumptions.

Good one to pick that up @nicolaiaaroe but let me pitch in here. I think this tuckbox was not done at USPCC but was produced by Gamblers Warehouse. There are some assumptions baked into your reasoning that whoever produced it might not have reached out to @jodyeklund after the sample tuck was produced. It usually doesn't happen like that. Most of the printers I have worked with have reached out to me during design as well as sample production. USPCC , in fact, sends you the uncut sheet and tuck print ( for standard CMYK tucks) as a sample for approval towards mass print. Thanks @decknowledgy for your post on UC which made me come here on IG to respond. Jody might pitch in soon too as I have copied him here.

Somehow I dislike when one talks about others on such a platform like IG etc., and doesn't tag them. I did not see Nicolai tagging Jody and had to even go ahead and tag Jody so that once he sees this coming on his IG feed, Jody would respond as well.

[montenzi]

Very interesting.

[sinjin7]

It's amusing to see the lengths some people will go to try to justify a decision, even worse to cast aspersions on a company without confirming all your info first. It seems to me the only people who really have no issues with NPCC are the ones who are strictly collectors who never use/handle their cards and probably don't ever open the tuck boxes. NPCC can produce decks with fantastic artwork, no question. But the finish and handling of NPCC cards are about what you can expect from cheap souvenir decks and are severely well below the standards of USPCC/Carta Mundi/EPCC/LPCC. Let's not even take cardistry standards here (that would be laughable), NPCC decks are even unpleasant to use in a round of poker when you have to shuffle and deal the cards. I truly have no use for any of NPCC decks I have owned and have given them all away. There are far too many decks with beautiful artwork and handle well for me to waste time and money on NPCC products.

While USPCC has issues with registration, they literally print 100 million decks a year. They have printed more decks in the past week than NPCC has printed in their entire existence. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of USPCC decks are registered just fine and only a tiny fraction of the overall 100 million decks are unacceptable. It's just that you see that small fraction getting magnified when people complain and post pictures on sites like Reddit and here at UC and the other 99.999 percent of good decks are not complained about or have pictures of their perfect registration posted by the millions of satisfied buyers. But like Brad mentioned earlier, every single NPCC deck will handle like crap.

I appreciate that Sunish responded to Nicolai setting some of his assumptions straight, and I completely agree it was bush league for Nicolai to use Jody's decks without tagging Jody in a disingenuous attempt to prove a point without verifying all his facts first. I suspect Jody was quite happy with his decision to have USPCC print his award-winning deck instead of NPCC.

[Decknowledgy]

Not my intention to move the discussion here to create a stir and division, but yeah, oh well...

[RandyButterfield]

USPCC didn’t even print the Luminosity Tuck Boxes. Gambler’s Warehouse did.

[Azid]

USPCC didn’t even print the Luminosity Tuck Boxes. Gambler’s Warehouse did.

Just wanted to write the same thing.
Why blaming USPCC for something that Gamblers did ?
----------------------------
Maybe this issue has somthing to do with the embossing on the Luminosity tucks, dunno. Gambles produced a lot of awesome tucks without foiling problems (for example the Hercules tuck with 3 foils is a gem)

About USPCC, yes they have registration problems with decks. Also their MetalLuxe isn't as good as Cartamundi foiling.
But when it comes to stock and finish USPCC is still on the top.

While NPCC..... well the can make nice tucks and that's it imo.

[PiazzaDelivery]

awwwwwww

I was hoping this would turn into a torch and pitchfork rally against USPCC's registration; I think it's a BIG issue.

[Harvonsgard]

The point Nicolai tried to make is that different printers excel in different realms. Which is correct but his perspective seems kinda skewed though. Since this thread was pretty silent after the praises for this deck after the fulfillment I guess that the presented issue with the foil is just a bad apple and not the norm. He got his hands on a faulty deck which doesn't represent the average of the quality.

Definitely weak to put the blame though on USPC when they didn't produce the tuck box, lol.

Regarding USPC registration, since it is fun, I've yet to see a deck with perfect registration from USPC. I concur that their average is mostly fine and luckily I was blessed with mostly average decks and only have 2 or 3 decks were it really ruins the deck. A slight irk comes with a lot of USPC decks though but there're more severe problems in the world than bad registration .