Zinab decks are made by Abbott's Magic. They are not the best, but are available. The best were made by Supeme Magic, which is now out of business. I do not know if the Christian deck from Europe are available any longer. They were very good.

Let me know your needs and maybe I can help you out. I bought a supply of cards years back and still have them. New condition.

The best method is fanning powder. Get it from Nielsen Magic as he make it correctly.

I can fan old decks of cards still... I have a deck of 4 month old bikes I can still fan.

Note: Fanning cards have a unique back design that creates nice colorful designs with each fan. The pip side or face is not used that much in card fanning.

The faces are use more for the card productions.

I have4 got a Dragon fanning deck and am very happy about its drawings. But the picture of a dragon can not be visible enough far from stage =( And I think it is just the only minus in it.

Pardon the late reply.

Call me a goober, I really liked the Tenyo T-41 four color tapered cards.

The Tenyo T-41 deck is the deck that Shimada used in his act at the 3:44 spot of this youtube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1Rw9jXV3mc
He did not make use ofr the tapered feature.

----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez

In response to Bill Hegbli's comment that "Zinab decks are made by Abbott's Magic. They are not the best..."

In my humble opinion, Abbott's Zinab Deck _is_ the best. It is the most _magical_ of all the fanning decks. Most fanning decks feature fans that change colors, but the Zinab Deck is fanned and shown blank on both sides--and then changes to a legitimate deck of 52 cards. That's muchmore magical than Supreme's deck, Magic Christian's deck, and just about every other fanning deck ever produced.

You can see my Zinab deck routine at the 8:00 minute spot of my promo video here:
https://www.facebook.com/338764602812514......&theater

----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez

In my close-up presentation of Abbott's Zinab Deck, I fan the deck to show it blank on both sides. Then I introduced an artist's palette and used a magic wand to tap the colors on the palette and magically paint the backs of the cards. I turned the palette over to show a bunch of cards on the reverse side. I tapped the cards and then tapped the Zinab to make the faces of a regular deck of cards. I had a card selected and performed "Wolfgang, the Mind-Reading Origami Puppet" where the puppet is unfolded at the end of the trick and shown to be a large poster of the selected card--the Kreuzbube--the Jack of Clubs!

When I performed that routine at the 1977 IBM convention I won third place in the Close-Up Contest and got a nice write-up from Bill Larsen in _GENII_.

Click here to see the palette and deck.
https://scontent.forf1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v......5C4949F1

----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez

Originally when Abbott's decided to bring back the Zinab Deck, Abbott's went with a company that only printed smooth card stock.

When Gordon "Mike" Miller brought the new design, similar to Harry Stanley's and later Supreme Magic design. They had them printed on the cushion fishing like it was a fabric, creating what is called an Air Cushion to the cards. This also allows the finish to better trap Fanning Powder. The new finish and design is an excellent deck.

The old bridge size cards with the rainbow design is not good at all.

This is from my purchasing these decks and working with them.

You may have had decks from when Percy Abbott ran the company, I never seen or handled those cards.

The 1st time I visited Abbott's was in 1964, but I was not into manipulation heavily then. In 1972 I met Marian Chavez at Abbott's and signed up for the course. That is my 1st experience with Fanning Cards.

I bought my first Zinab Deck by mail-order from Abbott's back in the 1960's. At first, even after treating it with fanning powder, I did have trouble fanning it because of the finish on the cards. But somewhere I had read that after treating a deck of cards with fanning powder, it should be wrapped in plastic wrap (e.g. Saran Wrap) and placed in a refrigerator overnight. So I did that, and upon taking the Zinab Deck out of the Saran Wrap the next day, it fanned perfectly.

I've posted a jpeg comparing the current Abbott fanning deck with the original Zinab deck on my facebook page, and hopefully you can see it here:
https://scontent.forf1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v......5C764A76

The best feature of the original Zinab deck is that it can be fanned and shown blank on both sides and then transformed into a standard bridge deck of 52 cards. That adds a strong quality of _magic_ to a fanning deck.

You should be able to see my performance of the Zinab deck at the end of my promo video here:
https://www.facebook.com/amado.narvaez.1......3/?t=487
at about the 8 minute spot.

As you can tell from that video, when I do a one-hand fan to show the cards blank, the deck fans perfectly. That one-hand fan is a tricky move to do with any deck, much less a fanning deck.

----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez

Speaking of fanning decks--I was never fond of the Tenyo fanning deck that Shimada favored. But it looks great in Shimada's hands. You can see Shimada's exhibition card fans at the 2:20 spot of this youtube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-ppVWv_JXo

An important consideration is that Shimada did not treat the Tenyo deck with fanning powder. As he explained in his Greater Magic instructional video produced by Stevens Magic, he treated his Tenyo fanning deck with paraffin wax--from a wax candle.

Haruhiko Nagisa is another magician who treats his manipulation cards with paraffin wax. Here's a youtube video of his card act:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dONVO-uS7iM

Nagisa has some unique fanning effects in his act that I haven't seen elsewhere--like the effect at the 1:56 spot where he closes a fan in his left hand, seems to transfer all the cards to his right hand, and then reaches his "apparently empty left hand" into the air and produces yet another fan!

Nagisa produced a couple of instructional magic videos that have not, as far as I know, been released outside of Japan. If anyone knows a source for DVDs of his instructional videos, please post it here. He also released a dancing cane instructional DVD, a performance clip of which can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN7YFb3vEEs

----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez

And the double fan effect that Nagisa does at the 9:12 spot of this video looks intriguing:
https://youtu.be/lo0v0Z3eyhw?t=192

It almost looks like he's going to do a split fan effect with a Joe Cossari fanning deck that has been glued together for making double fans a la Lewis Ganson's "Fan Finale" from _Routined Manipulations, Part One_!

----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez

Bumping this old thread cause I'm curious what's everyone using now? It seems the zinab deck is hard to find now... I like the idea of turning the cards from blank to having faces... any of the new ones do that? I'm still searching for it... maybe I need to buy a vintage zinab deck?

I thought these looked like something that some may prefer. Stumbled upon it a few days ago. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mak......ref=card

I'm looking for some elongated fanning cards that would work in a larger venue. I have used the Dragon cards in the past, but the dragon and the blank to printed doesn't work as well since folks can't see it! I think blank to colored would work, but are Zinab any larger than a normal bridge deck?

The Zinab deck is standard bridge-size. The Tenyo deck used by Shimada is also bridge-size.
Here's a list of some fanning decks and some of the magicians who featured them in their acts.
All are bridge-size and generally hard to find collectibles:
Peau Doux Pegasus (Cardini)
Park Avenue (Cardini; Goodlette Dodson)
ZBB Deck (Zina B. Bennett)
Zinab Deck (Zina B. Bennett; Sonny Narvaez)
Unique Studios (Johnny Hart; Denny Haney; Andre Kole; Sonny Narvaez)
Alf Cooke (Joe Cossari)
Joe Cossari Deck (Joe Cossari; Haruhiko Nagisa)
Fanorama Deck (Joe Cosssari)
Waddington Chess Deck (Channing Pollock)
Western Publishing Company Horse Deck (Channing Pollock)
Arrco Palomino Deck (Sonny Narvaez)
Carto-Color Deck from A. Mayette of Paris Rene Lavand)
Thomas de la Rue (Lewis Ganson; Carlo Tornedo)