Royal Anchors playing cards is the, currently, latest deck produced by False Anchors / Ryan Schlutz.

I want to put it out here ahead of time that I have (almost) every deck by False Anchors, or maybe every deck, so if you know me, you may think that this is brand-biased. On one hand, it kind of is because I haven't been disappointed by the brand yet. On the other, well the deck color and design kind of called to me -- so I bought it without hesitation.

For this deck, Ryan was testing out a new printer and went with a smaller batch of only 500 decks printed, 350 for sale on his site. Link: https://falseanchors.com/products/royal-anchors

The tuck is a crisp matte purple with a metallic gold foiled anchor emblem on the front, "False Anchors" on the top, and signed by Ryan on the back. No other printing is on the tuck, not even on the bottom, which I find to be quite unique.

The back design of the deck is covered with anchors! One thing I don't mention in my review below -- because it completely slipped my mind while filming -- is that the back design is actually a one-way design. There's one little anchor, third down on the top-left (and third up on the bottom-right), that faces the same orientation so when you turn the card around, it's now different from the rest of the deck. With all of the anchors on the back, it's very subtle and sneaky. Not only that, but the deck's marked! In several ways...

Two of the anchors in the upper-left(ish) corner make up the value + suit marking system. I, personally, have a hard time seeing tiny writing and markings so most marking systems don't work well with my vision -- I've had zero problems with reading this one and it flies by anyone else looking at the deck. Win/win! But wait, there's more! There's also an anchor that indicates if the card's Red/Black, and another that indicates Round/Flat. Red/Black makes sense right away, but it took me a good minute or two to think of how to utilize the Round/Flat idea and then it dawned on me, it's the same concept as Red/Black but using the value of the card rather than the color! i.e., it's a magician fooler . Oh, and if that wasn't enough, the deck comes in Si Stebbins stack right out of the box!

The faces are standard spot cards and the courts are standard design, however, the courts have been recolored to match the purple and gold colorway of the deck. Two non-identical jokers, a double-backer, and a blank-faced card also join the rest of the cards.

Now, back to this "new printer"... I don't know who Ryan used. However, it's printed with what's called a "Coastal Finish". The stock feels similar to Bicycle Standards -- maybe a little thinner -- and the cut is far smoother around the edges. The texture of the cards isn't something I can equate to anything else though; it's not quite Air Cushion, and it's not PVC... tt handles really well right out of the box though and does feel good in the hands.

If you're interested in more, check out my unboxing + review on YouTube!