I've just noticed that the wholesaler Kingmagic is offering a Svengali deck for just $0.88 on its website. That seems very cheap.

http://www.kingmagic.com/index.php?main_......s_id=694

Two questions:

1) Can anyone judge the quality of this Svengali deck?

2) Approximately how much does it cost to produce 10,000 or 100,000 "normal" (i.e. uncut) decks? If a trimmed Svengali deck sells for $0.88 (minimum 24 pieces), the manufacturing price for an untrimmed deck should be much cheaper still. I would have thought that inflation has made card decks more expensive to produce. Is it really possible to produce a deck of cards of acceptable quality for, say, $0.50 or $0.70 in a larger print run? Of course we are not talking about Bicycle cards here.

Many thanks in advance.

Good news Daniel, I've been buying kingmagic products for years, and I
have a couple of these sven decks, including one in my hand as I write
this.

These cards are plastic coated, so they are a little stiff, and a bit
prone to damage, but over all pretty good. They're better than a dollar
store deck, or whatever the German cheap store is, but worse than a
bicycle.

They are similar to a maverick deck if you're aware.

The handling is fine, they are all trimmed correctly. There are two jokers,
and the exact number of duplicates you need including jokers, so there isn't
any extras.

The box is of particular note, it is made of think stiff paperboard, which
I like. But unfortunately, it says "kingmagic" on it, and "magic playing cards"
on the side, so you would need to switch boxes if you were to use it.

All in all, easily worth the 88 cents, if you have any questions or want any
pictures, feel free to ask.

Very interesting, thank you very much Fedora.

"They're better than a dollar store deck, or whatever the German cheap store is, but worse than a
bicycle."

The poker card deck of the "EuroShop" (that's the name of he dollar-stores in Germany) was quite good. But then came inflation, which made energy more expensive than in the USA. And paper production nees a lot of energy. For I guess two years now, some of the products in the EuroShop have cost more than one euro (previously everything cost one euro) and since then you can no longer buy the poker card deck there either, I suspect because of the higher energy prices. It seems card deck production in the USA is cheaper than in Germany, but I have no real insights.

Our DollarTree also increased the prices of almost everything 25% since the pandemic.

The DollarTree near me has things as high as $4 now.

The dollar store deck, as well as the maverick deck manufactured by USPC are made in china.

Kingmagic is of course a Chinese company with a big presence on Aliexpress, that's likely
why it's so cheap. The quality from Kingmagic varies a lot from one product to another,
from pretty good like this deck to completely unusable.

A lot is bootleg as well.

Here is something. Delivery companies for restaurants like Sysco and Performance Foods put a l fuel surcharge when prices of fuel went up so high.

Want to guess if it was taken off now that prices are almost back to prior levels? Nope.

Rhode Island Novelty has some cards for $4.80 Dz (.40 ea) That’s $57.60 for case of 12 dz.

I have bought other items from Rhode Island but never the cards, so I don’t know what they feel like.

Tom

Trying to find these on their website but not finding them.

Try Here:

https://rinovelty.com/playing-cards~p11677

Tom

Can anyone here judge the quality of the card decks from Rhode Island, are they "ok" or too thin like lots of decks from China?

The Rhode Island Novelty card deck is made in China.

Some decks from China are "ok" (see Fedora's comment above about Kingmagic's Svengali deck) and some decks from China have extremely thin cards and feel bad/strange. It would therefore be interesting to know what the Rhode Island Novelty card deck is like.

Hey Daniel, save your money.. those Chinese cards from Rhode Island are trash!
I've purchased the same brand from another supplier when my original suppliers ran out of svens so I can make my own and gotta say they don't even last to the parking lot. They are made of cheap flimsy cardboard and the card box breaks down as soon as you open it. And I'm not exaggerating when I say they are just cheap cardboard..

Now the king magic cards are ok for pitching them but they come without instructions and also they are poker size, not bridge.. hope this helps!

Here are some wholesale prices of Svengali Decks from Loftus:

https://www.loftus.com/items/LF-0310
$2.50 each (multiples of 12)
$2.00 each (144 or more)
$1.75 each (432 or more)

https://www.loftus.com/items/SV-0001
$1.58 each (multiples of 12)
$1.45 each (144 or more)
$1.39 each (432 or more)

Note - I haven't seen the quality of their cards.

However, their other Empire Magic items are a fairly nice quality (I use their carded tricks & magic kits in my own magic kits / BOR).

If I were to try them out, I would buy 12 of them to start with (mixed in with a larger order), before going for a big batch.

- Donald

Thanks to everyone for the information!

I read TomBoleware's posts with interest and am grateful for them.

Danny and Mindpro, your points in this thread might be a little more well taken if either of you had posted information on where to purchase these said cards at a more affordable rate. That would be beneficial to the OP

Same could be said for the post you just made.

Irony much?

We sell the King Magic Svengalis at the shop I demo at. They're perfectly adequate cards for pitching.

At $.88 I'd buy as many as I possibly could. Although,by my math, under $.50 is the total "sweet spot" if you're going to be just pitching svens' and want to keep your price point at $5 or so...

Do you sell them for $5?

We sold them at $10 but as a package, not just the deck. We pitched a worm and a 2 card Monte.

I wish Mark Lewis could post here because I guarantee he has the current information. (Gaddy I’m certain your information is correct. Mark has been pitching these forever is my point.)

I could be wrong, but I’m not sure the .88 cent price includes shipping costs from China. I don’t have an account with King Magic and it's hard to tell what their minimum order is. One place on their site it’s no minimum, another $500. and another $200. So I’m just curious if anyone here has bought direct from China? I do have an account with D Robbins and they sell the King Magic Svengalis but it’s more than .88.

Tom

Then you’re not buying enough of them.