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- Yo what's up guys, welcome back.
very excited about today's video.
If you follow my channel,
I posted a video yesterday of a puzzle,
that Dan and Dave sent me,
and inside this puzzle was a special deck
that deck turned out to be Jerry's Nuggets.
Now a lot of the comments below on that video we're
what are Jerry's Nuggets, why are they so valuable,
why do they fetch up to 500 dollars online?
And today we're gonna take a look at all those answers
but also we're gonna feature
a reprint of the Jerry's Nuggets
which is coming out very soon
and we're gonna look at the differences
and and just basically find out why these cards
are worth $500 today.
So when I first received this deck,
I was kind of taken aback
and I was very apprehensive
and not to like destroy the cellophane
and I didn't want any want to damage the deck in any way.
Last night I kind of slept on it
and I thought you know what,
playing cards were meant to be played with,
they were meant to be used
they were meant to be broken in,
they're meant to be worn,
I thought what a great opportunity to show you guys
what the original Jerry's Nuggets is all about.
Let's start with a bit of a history lesson.
Jerry's Nuggets Casino was founded
by Jerry Lodge and Jerry Stannis,
and it stands today
as a significant piece of Las Vegas history.
In the 1970s the Jerry's Nugget casino
started using these playing cards,
they were manufactured intended for them
to be used at the table,
they eventually got loaded onto a truck
and dropped in the warehouse,
they were not put on the tables
and they were just sold in gift shops for 50 cents.
During that time there was a magician
by the name of Frank Simon I believe,
who published a book
and every picture in his book, used the Jerry's Nuggets,
and it started causing amongst magicians,
a bit of a bit of a hike.
These cards were originally printed
by the United States Playing Card Company,
however not the one located currently in Kentucky,
but the one in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Now most cards ever printed
out of Cincinnati have the blue seal
and that's how you can tell
that these we're printed by Cincinnati,
and for card collectors
those have become the more rare cards
and the reason being is because
you cannot reprint these cards,
there is no way you can reprint them,
to the standards that they were printed.
The original Jerry's Nugget was the only deck
that had an air-cushion finish on one side only
which is the back of the card,
and the other side would have like a slider embossing
but just kind of like lines instead of a grid,
so it made them feel quite unique.
Also back then a cotton roller
was used to paint the emboss,
on the front of the playing card,
nowadays a steel roller is used to make an impression,
a dip coating technique
was also used to finish the cards,
and that's not something we do today,
so we know that they're rare,
we know that we can't print cards like these anymore,
these cards are hyper durable,
which is why a lot of magicians really like them
because they would last for years,
but really does that make, them worth $500?
Well in 1999 a magician, a French magician,
by the name of Dominique Duvivier,
purchased 40,000 decks,
he bought out every single
Jerry's Nuggets deck of playing cards,
hoarded them to himself.
He still has the collection today,
when he performs, when he's on the street,
or whatever he does, he uses Jerry's Nuggets.
So he's like the main source of Jerry's Nuggets right now.
By taking all of the cards away from the market,
you automatically create a low supply, with a high demand.
Dan and Dave also popularized the Jerry's Nuggets
because they were seen using them
in a lot of their cardistry videos,
as well as Chris Kenner,
and I believe both of them
have a significant amount of Jerry's Nuggets still.
There are a few ways to tell
if this is a real Jerry's Nugget,
one the seal has a perforated stamped seal,
it is a blue seal as well and it's kind of offset.
Secondly when you open the top case
there is a long flap,
now this is something they stopped doing
when they move the factory to Kentucky,
but the flaps used to be very long
so that's another way you can tell.
Aside from that the cards feel good,
you know personally I wouldn't say,
they hold up to today's standards of playing cards,
and I know a lot of people would swear by Jerry's
and say these are the best cards ever,
but they're really not.
They're good for packet cuts,
but they do clump up after a while,
kind of like old Arrcos,
but that doesn't take away the allure
from the playing cards.
So in a nutshell that is the story behind
why these cards are so rare
and why they are so expensive,
I'm lucky enough to have one played with it, love it,
I'm gonna keep it forever,
I don't care if it's opened,
the cards are meant to be played with.
Now my friend Bill Kalush
runs the Conjuring Arts Research Center,
as well as the Expert Playing Card Company
bought the rights to reprint Jerry's Nuggets.
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It means he is allowed to use
the Jerry's Nuggets logo and back design
and face design, everything else
and sell them today.
Bill sent me a little box with two of these decks,
these will be going up on Kickstarter soon
and I wanted to sort of
because now that I have a Jerry's Nuggets,
I wanted to compare them to the original Jerry's
and see how they felt.
By the way here's a quick look
at these are the original Jerry's Nuggets,
a bit yellowed from time
and these are the reprinted Jerry's Nuggets
so they even kept the off,
sort of the off-centered blue seal
not perforated as you can see
and underneath instead of saying
North Las Vegas, Nevada,
you have all the company's information
so as a collaboration between Jerry's Nuggets Casino
and the expert playing card company
distributed by EPCC, manufactured
by the United States Playing Card Company.
Now normally Bill Collusion Expert Playing Cards
are known for printing their cards in Taiwan,
I was very delighted to see
that they chose to go with USPCC
on this particular design
so you got the blue and the red decks
just exactly like the two colorways
that Jerry's Nuggets had
however when you take in the cards for me,
I mean they feel a lot better,
they feel like actual USPCC cards,
they are premium stocked, they are crushed,
they are traditionally cut so they faro very nicely,
they fan well, these feel like cards
that I would print myself
if I were to go and print let's say it'll be three
of first playing cards,
foreshadowing,
I would definitely print them in this stock and this finish,
they feel phenomenal, fantastic.
Everything else is the exact same
so when you talk about the aces,
you talk about the jokers,
the only difference is you do have an ad card
which kind of explains the situation
between EPCC and the Jerry's Nuggets franchise.
Originally imprinted 1970 by USPCC,
Jerry's Nuggets Casino,
the Jerry's Nuggets deck has become iconic
and the most sought after modern deck.
Now nearly 50 years later,
the Jerry's Nugget deck is reborn.
This preview deck is produced
by the EPCC by exclusive license
from Jerry's Nugget Casino
and manufactured at USPCC
at the highest modern standards.
It has been printed on Premium stock,
crushed to the perfect thinness
making it handle beautifully
and satisfy today's demanding tastes.
So I appreciate that,
they definitely didn't cheap out,
I'm glad they didn't go with Taiwan
even though if they would have printed Taiwan
it probably would have felt closer
to what that original Jerry's Nuggets felt like,
the cards are a bit thicker,
they feel a little bit more plasticky
but those aren't the cards that I want to use,
I want to use cards that feel great,
they sent me this little thing.
It says here's the first look
at the forthcoming official
Jerry's Nugget Decks.
After years of pursuit,
we have obtained an exclusive license
from Jerry's Nuggets casino to print these cards
and we could not be more excited.
So this summer on July 1st
they'll be launching a Kickstarter campaign
to produce the first official Jerry's Nuggets deck
in almost 50 years.
And as they say here,
they're not meant to be replicas of the originals,
as you may know due to changes in cardstock,
printing process as I mentioned,
it's impossible to copy the original deck exactly
nor is that their goal.
With these new Jerry's,
we hope to make one of the most
sought-after decks available to all
which I think is really cool
because not a lot of people can afford,
or find these decks out there
so it's an opportunity for everybody to have
that same feeling you get
when you play around with Jerry's Nuggets.
There we go, Bill signed this,
he sent this to me and basically
asked me if I was willing to make a video on it
and at first I mean I'm always down
for a cool deck review
but it just so happens that we had
an original Jerry's Nuggets in yesterday's video
which was totally unplanned
which kind of was very serendipitous
so I'm glad that that happened.
I think that about wraps it up,
I don't want to go,
I don't want to start repeating myself
and go into tangents
but I just wanted to kind of compare the original
J-Nugs to the ones we're getting
on the Kickstarter campaign
and that you can get possibly in July.
So be on the lookout for that.
I left their Instagram below
if you want to check it out as well.
And yeah that was a lot of fun to make,
this video was a lot of fun,
we got some really, really nice b-roll
and I got to sit at the card table
with my close-up pad,
we added some smoke in there
to make it feel a little bit more legitimate,
something like from the old gamblers era
which is really cool.
Anyways guys thanks for watching this video,
I hope you enjoyed this content,
if you did leave a like,
subscribe if you're new here
and we'll see you on the next one.
Peace, bye.
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