One of three editions funded through Kickstarter in February 2020.

Sovereign ...is a homage to some of the most well-known Kings and Queens of the greatest European empires of all times. Sovereign reimagines the courts of a standard deck with illustrations that are gorgeous and colorful, with intricate details.

Sovereign, a person who has supreme power or authority...

This campaign is my attempt to represent Sovereign, which is defined as:

Having supreme rank, power, or authority - supreme; preeminent; indisputable - greatest in degree; utmost or extreme - being above all others in character, importance, excellence.

Each one of the historical kings and queens depicted in this deck are a shadow of what true sovereignty is meant to be. Each one was flawed like us all, but were seen as divinely anointed. The kings and queens were honored as divinity its self. Birth right and elevation, great responsibility and power.

The ELITES are a unique collaboration between DMC himself (star of National Geographic's CARD SHARK, BEYOND MAGIC WITH DMC, and Netflix®™ series DEATH BY MAGIC) and designer and magic creator Phill Smith - architect of the revolutionary OPTICAL MARKING SYSTEM. The new DMC ELITES V4 are printed on the world-class Phantom Finish - the cards will endure many hours of professional use, and all faces are standard for minimum scrutiny or suspicion from your audience. This new Sovereign Blue edition of the V4 ELITES is printed with a rich blue ink and features a beautifully embossed tuck box with an elegant art deco pattern within. For the first time the ELITES also comes with a double backer, to even further increase the incredible utility of the deck for all magic uses.

The cards themselves feature the latest revision of the unique OPTICAL MARKING SYSTEM (OMS), a powerful 'reader' system designed specifically for the use of magicians and mentalists (as opposed to many decks designed for the gambling world). The OMS has an ingeniously hidden marking mechanic that is readable with extreme speed, at great range and even in poor light. It hides the value and suit of the card in plain sight with no decoding necessary - the back of the card literally says the value and the suit. Despite this, you can still comfortably hand the deck to a layman safe in the knowledge that even the most critical observer would not even suspect, let alone detect, the secret markings.

• Unique optical marking system - no decoding, readable fast at long range
• Four corner marking readable from left and right hand spreads
• One way backs and fronts allowing powerful unique techniques to locate cards
• Standard faces for easy recognition
• Double backer included for classic magic methods
• Two silhouette Jokers with a built in card reveal
• Instruction card explains reading the marks

Previous V4 decks have won awards, sold tens of thousands of decks and gathered hundreds of five star reviews... and this is the best yet.

Introducing Exquisite! From Expert Playing Card Company.

Produced in a quantity of only a few hundred this stunning deck comes in it’s own custom Pack Jacket. This deck will only be released with its Pack Jacket, and the Exquisite Pack Jacket will not be released separately. We have priced this at an amazing $14.95 post paid per deck, and we expect our very small quantity to sell out immediately. Move fast if you want this deck!

Old or New? Yes!

A few years ago when we started to get the itch to create modern versions of decks from the golden age of playing cards (1860-1920) our first stop was at the great temple for all things related to playing card collecting, Tom and Judy Dawson’s place in Toronto.

Among a number of really cool and rare decks offered to us was this amazing deck called Exquisite. The Dawson’s told us that this deck from about 1895 or so and produced by the Union Playing Card Company of New York was, as far as they knew, a one of kind. No other example had ever turned up anywhere.

The sideways tuck was love at first sight!

The back design that Union used wasn’t as much fun so we decided to replace it with a really beautiful back that had also originally come from the Art Nouveau period.

What we have now is the result of that day with Tom and Judy (and many many other great days with them!), Asi Wind’s great eye in picking out the back design and Lawrence Sullivan’s help in getting the factory that made the Legends (a true instant classic) to make our sideways tuck.