I was at one of those board game shops which pop up every year around the holiday season. Naturally I gravitated towards the card section. I saw some cool things there. Jumbo (Bicycle) decks for only $10, WWI/II decks, The SteamBoat deck, Tally-Ho's (on regular store shelves!) and a miniature deck which was 3/4 x 1/2 of an inch (talk about SMALL!). Naturally I couldn't pass up all of them.

Anyway, one of the other things I saw was a Braille Deck. I opened the box which was a bit larger then the normal card box) and spread through them. From the back, I never noticed any bumps so I thought maybe this was the wrong deck. I turned it over and the faces were normal, when I looked closer, I noticed the bumps on the index corners. It was really cool because of the back design on bicycle decks, you couldn't see the little depressions on the back.

What are some ideas you think you could do with this?

You could now do all your magic blindfolded.

Find cards very easily by merely touching the card

Tell what cards are when they remain shuffled and face down.

I would have to say that if done right, and you had good fingers, this might be one of the best marked decks out there!

What are your thoughts?

Derek Merdinyan

It would take a bit to pratice but it would be nice.
I have a question are the bumps big or small. I mean could you hand out the card without a person instantly seeing or feeling them?

Do you remember the name of the kiosk? I'm in Seattle and would love to find some of these items (especially the braille deck). Did it come with instructions on how to read them? Talk about a cool twist on a marked deck! Thanks for sharing the info. Sounds like you found yourself quite a trove.

I believe the purpose of braille decks is to allow blind people the ability to play card games, not for your deviant magic purposes.

LOL j/k

I have an old braille deck that I got on eBay about 5 years ago. The box is an old Bicycle braille box, but the cards are newer and say Kem Playing Cards on the Ace of Spades, and are not plastic coated, but they are completely plastic. One initial thought was to use them for a marked deck type of routine, but I felt it involved too much practice to learn all the dots.

I mostly got them for my card collection because they were unique, but good luck with creating routines for your deck!!

TomK

The shop is in the Crossroads Mall in Bellevue (?) The store is called Uncle's Games. Nice place, LOTS of games, wonder how well it will do after the holiday season...

Derek Merdinyan

There is a picture of one here but only the front.

http://www.completegamester.com/pages/ga......ille.jpg

Thanks for the tip, Derek. I work close to Crossroads and will check it out next week.

A Braille Deck might be a better idea to use for card magic than a marked deck. If it's not too hard to learn braille and if others are not aware of the Braille marks they would be perfect for gambling, card magic, or mentalism.

Gerard

The braille decks are quite a bit fatter than a normal deck, due to the bumps on the index corners. If anyone could be fooled into thinking it was a normal deck, they'd probably think it was severely warped!

Kevin

I finally got to the shop and saw the braille deck. Not at all what I expected, and very easy to see, at least from the face, that the cards are far from ordinary (still pretty cool, as I haven't seen a deck like this before). Good selection of cards there though, so the trip was still worthwhile. Derek, if you like the mini decks you should stop by a Rite Aid shop. They had the mini decks with pastel backs.

Magiguy-
I got a few of those other mini decks already.

As for the braille deck, I was thinking if I ever used it, I would probably take around 15 cards out of the deck to bring it closer to a normal size.

As for the picture in the link above, it kinda looks like that only the ones I saw had the normal bicycle face (normal index size and picture). The bumps are more visible on the face but if you hold the cards right you could easily (and naturally) cover the bumps when the cards are face up. Obviously it isn't possible to do that if you have a large mass of cards on the table, but a few in the hands or a few on table couldn't be that big of a problem.

Derek Merdinyan

You can get the braille decks here:

http://www.kardwell.com/braille-playing-cards.htm

They also have decks from casinos (used I think), and they can make custom back (and front) decks...

--William

You could a deck like that for the blind version of the card effect/con game "Feel the Lady".
:)

PSIncerely Yours,
Paul Alberstat

I have a blind relitive who made a braile deck for me. I still haven;t gotten around to reading braile but I have some ideas of great uses for it in magic.

Ron Jaxon