Bicycle Cards UK – Our Top Ten List of Must Have Decks

Every card magician should have a favourite deck of playing cards. Here is our Top Ten list of playing card decks so you can have some help finding yours.

10) The Guardian Deck

The Guardian Deck has a great dark design on the back with guardian angels as part of the design. It is dark yet not over the top like some designs, it is understated and, as a result, has a very clean look.

9) Spectrum Deck

The Spectrum Deck is the perfect deck of playing cards to use when you want a great kicker finish to ANY of your card routines. Each card is a different colour of the spectrum, with 52 different colours.

8) Gold Standard Bicycle Playing Cards

Richard Turner is an immensely accomplished sleight of hand expert. He has even helped the USPCC with their quality control. Richard commissioned these decks to be made especially when the USPCC changed their way of cutting the cards. His Gold Standard deck is cut like they used to be and retain the ability to be faroed perfectly. If you do intense, precise sleight of hand with cards then this is the deck for you.

7) Expert Deck

The Expert deck is a deck of playing cards with an aged look. This deck is particularly great for storytelling routines or routines in which you wish to weave a tale of the first trick your grandfather ever taught you with these exact cards.

6) Timeless Bicycle Cards UK

The Timeless deck is on our list as there is great potential with this deck. Each court card has a clock with a different time upon its face. This can be used for many different mind reading or prediction effects. Imagine if your watch stopped working at exactly the time printed on their selected card!

5) Divine Deck

The Divine Deck has a very interesting design. It is a pattern that is said to be repeated all over the universe. The design is made from a mathematical pattern that was discovered in 1200AD. The design is found everywhere, within flowers, in the waves of the sea, in your ear, even in the shapes of galaxies. This enables you to speak about the strange coincidences in the world that are as of yet not fully understood, a perfect accompaniment to your magic.

4) Tally Ho Bicycle Playing Cards UK

The Tally Ho deck is a classic deck, it is made by the USPCC but is on a different finish to Bicycle decks. This finish is smooth and lends itself amazingly to flourishing.

3) Moonshine Deck

The Moonshine deck is one of our favourite decks as you can see, coming in at number 3! The Moonshine deck is an elegant design, it is not dark and gothic-like. The design’s influence comes from the days of the alcohol prohibition in the USA. A smooth finish and elegant design make this truly one of our favourite decks of playing cards.

2) Mechanic Deck

The Mechanic deck has its place at number two due to an amazing feature. The cogs and mechanic design is clean and great to look at. But get the cards into new deck order and they really come to life. Literally. If you flick through the deck like a flick-book when it is in new deck order, the cogs and wheels animate and begin to spin. The perfect way to demonstrate how the deck rearranges itself into a new deck order.

1) Bicycle Standard Deck

The outright winner which may be denied by some is the Bicycle Standard deck. There are many reasons as to why this has been voted the best deck by us here at Merchant of Magic. One reason is the cost, because of the cheap cost of these cards it opens up opportunities to do tricks such as Torn and Restored Card without feeling the pinch in your pocket so much. So many great tricks have been released in Bicycle format which means you can transition between packet tricks smoothly or even take the packet trick cards from your deck as if they were regular cards. Above all, the Bicycle Standard is our favourite as they are the most-common playing card design around the world. they are widely recognised through the explosion of the Poker scene and for that reason they create very little suspicion.

So there you have it, our list of the Top Ten Bicycle Cards UK. What are your thoughts? Do you have a favourite deck that you feel should be on this list?

Bicycle Cards – Are They Worth the Money?

by Dominic Reyes 1 Comment

Are Bicycle Cards worth the money? Would it be better to use cheap playing cards for practice?

We posted a customer question asking about Bicycle cards for beginner magicians. Should beginners use Bicycle cards? There was a lot of feedback from magicians, so here's some of the great advice:

Duncan Clarke – Bicycle all the way.

Brian Clarke – Waddingtons, available at most newsagents and stationary stores in the UK

Sean Mccarthy – Phoenix cards are the best on the market quality wise. Bikes are standard and most gimmicks come in bikes. I would say get bicycle cards if you are starting off. If you have been doing magic for a while you should seriously consider the phoenix deck. After that, style and personal taste may affect your choice (I personally love the black noc deck).

Peter Curly Galloway – I find bicycle cards a little too slippy to start with. But after a while they are perfect. & last ages.

Chris Curley – A shoddy workman will always blame his tools. Bicycle cards are too pricey in the UK if he is only just learning and from personal experiance when I started I bought either waddingtons (£1) or just standard plastic coated cards (70p). Bicycle cards are great and are pretty much the standard but I know kids change there minds quite alot so next month he might not want to do magic and to be honest the pricey cards you speak of just look better and as a purist where cards are concerned I have never met a deck of cards that have ruined my ability to do tricks and sleights as I have and still do practice with every type of card I can get my hands on.

Alan Penman – Very cheap cards can be difficult to work with. However bicycle cards are not too expensive and worth it. Only spend extra to impress that special someone. Lol

Jonathan Nicholson – The standard USPC bicycle cards are the most popular primarily as any "gaffed" or specially customised decks are made with bike backs but the new trend in "cardistry" and flourishes often promote bespoke or limited release decks as their tools of choice (and their marketing is powerfully good at creating a demand) but the truth is just as all the previous comments have suggested… A good card trick can be performed with ANY pack I cards regardless of design or price tag. A deck of bikes can be used for just about everything but if he is more into the decks than the tricks then it's about personal choice in back design

Dan Wan – Bicycle plastic cards? A bit more expensive but last ages, not as good for sleights but fine when you are learning.

Matthew Ramsell – Standard bikes are all I ever use

Brent M Braun – I would say it depends on what kind of sleights he is working on. I couldn't imagine learning Faro shuffles with "Kentucky bikes"

Yann Champion – Bicycle Seconds if he's into magic. Tally Ho if he's really into cardistry and want to try something else.
He doesn't need anything else. But good luck to make a teenager understand that fancy decks are marketed towards kids and that magicians in the know don't care about them.

David Harris – Stick with bicycle cards.

Geoffrey Hubbard – I find Waddington playing cards are great for the price. The better you get, the more you pay. My opinion only.

What's your opinion? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment in the section below

How Magicians Control Your Mind – Playing Card Control

by Dominic Reyes Leave a Comment

By Ben Williams

Simon is having trouble controlling spectators when he asks them to cover a pile of playing cards with their hands.

Simon writes: 'There is a card magic trick I perform that requires the spectators to hold their hand on top of a pile of cards. However, it is crucial that the spectators do not disturb the playing cards, revealing any of the backs of the cards. When the spectator places their hands over the cards, they often slide around and when the spectator lifts his or her hands, sometimes the top one will stick briefly, which reveals the cards below

The only way I can get around this is by telling the spectator to lift their hands ‘really slowly’ and ‘gently’ and almost squaring the cards as they raise their hands. When I say this, they’ll often only raise their hands only a centimetre or so which makes it really awkward for me to square the piles. I find that I appear unnaturally concerned about how square the piles are, and it probably makes the spectator question whether all four cards really are black when I follow on with the routine as the next move is to execute an Elmsley Count.

While I still get great reactions with this card magic trick, I find that this problem detracts from it. Is there anything you could suggest that would minimise this problem or solve it completely?'

How magicians control your mind when you hold playing cards

So this is quite a common problem that can be translated across many areas of close up magic. You don’t want your spectators to do something, or you NEED them to do something, but you want to be casual and magical, not neurotic and panicky!

It is all about spectator management, it is important to keep in control of your spectators but to do it indirectly. I may cover my directions with a comedic line, or I will state my direct instructions with emphasis on certain areas and my actions and body language will do the talking for me, for example, I may place someone’s hand in a certain way and step back only to correct them slightly and then say, ‘perfect, wait right there!!’

In this case, if the reason for the spectator placing their hand on top of the pile is purely to isolate the cards so that you cannot touch them, then you could use any manner of techniques to achieve the same result.

Using another object

You could place a playing card box on top of the cards, or any other small item like a glass. If there are two piles and one item won’t work or doesn't look aesthetically pleasing then you could substitute the spectator’s palm for just a finger, asking the two spectators to rest their finger on top of the pile. You can add a line like,

‘please make sure they do not spread the cards, it would ruin the climax of the trick.’

You can also simply say that you do not want to show the cards until the suspense has been built sufficiently so please do not spread them. Another method you could explore is to add a simple comedy line to it, for example,

'Please, rest your finger (or hand) on top of the cards to isolate them, this way I cannot touch them. Please do not spread the cards, we want to keep the mystery and build suspense. Should these cards spread too early and reveal the climax before the end of the trick, quite simply the universe will implode and it will be all your fault.'

This kind of line will be well recieved but also understood which is what you are gunning for in a situation like this, complete compliance.

Spectators going out of control

If a spectator tries to do something themselves that could ruin the effect, for example, demanding that they turn over a card rather than the magician, I will say something like,

'Whoa whoa whoa! Hang on! We must build suspense! We can't have you revealing the end of the trick willy nilly! These things take care and consideration, the crowd should be built up into a frenzy and anticipating this final reveal like a bunch of kids waiting to open their presents at Christmas! As you can see, neither are the crowd in a frenzy nor are they jumping up and down like kids with ants in their pants! We need theatrics!'

With this sort of sentence, I regain control of the situation, slow down or change the pace to a speed I want, and also communicate in a nice and indirect way not to do anything. Sometimes it stirs up the group and they begin jumping up and down in a frenzy for comedic effect! Which can give off a great energy in the room.

If you need something to be done in a particular way, deflect the reason for your concern towards another subject, for example, saying, ‘the universe will implode’ instead of ‘it will reveal the how the trick works’ then you can be very direct with your actions whilst still having it make sense. Instead of misdirecting their eyes you are misdirecting their mind.