Piatnik Club: Deck review

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Piatnik Club: Poker sized
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Where to buy: The Card Collection (The Bond Company)
Bond Agency & The Card Collection Piatnik Club Poker Size Cards & Matching Fakes

Price: £3.50

Initial Impressions: This is a good high quality card that should appeal to those who like a stiff flex and smooth finish. Piatnik clubs were the choice of Tommy Wonder and it goes without saying that he probably knew a thing or two about cards. Overall I am enjoying these cards, and I am sure many of you will as well.

The Look: They do have a nice look to them but sadly the back design is similar in character to some Royal card designs I have seen. Thus, many may look at it and think, “cheap junk,” before bothering to try them out. The court cards are very similar to standard USPCC art. The Ace of Spades is a fairly dull design with a Ferd. Piatnik and Sons banner across the bottom. The Ace of Hearts, actually has another trademark design on it as well. There is a small horse and rider directly under the center heart pip. The jokers are a fairly traditional jester’s head design as well. All in all you won’t buy this deck for looks. It is a basic red/blue card with nothing image wise to set it apart.

Card Construction: This is why you will likely buy a Piatnik. When you pick these up you will feel a good, strong, quality deck of cards that I have come to expect from European brands. The weighed in at 92 gm and had a width of about 15.5mm. These are just about the same width as a Bike 808. They are a smooth finish card and have slightly rounder corners than USPCC cards.

Handling:
Fanning: 8
Out of the box they fan just fine but no where near the smoothness you will get from USPCC. Very few smooth backed cards will match the USPCC pattern in fanning.

Spring Energy: 9.8
In blindfold tests I could not tell a difference between these and the Fournier 605s

Dribble: 7
Like a Fournier, hand strength will play a role in how smooth these dribble for you but, I found them just a tad more clumpy than the 605s.

Crimp Hold/Recovery: 6 hold/ 8 Recovery
This is one area Fournier has them clearly licked. Never the less I have found the OOB crimp tests a somewhat unreliable predictor of how cards age. Only time will tell.

Single Card Glide: 7
They seemed to out perform 808s for bottom card glides but not top card glides. The plusses and minuses seem to cancel each other out so left it at a 7.

2 + Obfuscations: 8
Slightly better performance here than with an 808 which is to be expected with the stiffer stock. The Piatniks are perhaps a bit worse than the Bike in the Hugard/Braue push-off but the Piatnik matched or beat the Bikes in all other moves.

Gaff construction and availability: Several “standard” gaffs can be found at the above listed site.

Who Not Should Buy: Beginners and intermediats who have yet to develop the hand strength necessary to make use of a powerful stock. This one also won’t shuffle smooth enough for people into classic gambling demos.

Who Should Buy: I think anyone who has acquired a taste for stiffer decks might want to check these out. They perform and handle similar to the Anglos and Fourniers and they are a bit cheaper so they might be nice practice decks provided you can find a supplier with affordable shipping. One last group to recommend this to might be Tommy Wonder fans and wannabees.

Final Thoughts: As I write this I have exactly 5 hours logged on this deck. So far so good, there has been a minor drop in the fan likely due to the fact that I have already managed to drop them more time than I care to count. (As soon as you see the video supplement you have a good idea as to why that is!) Overall they are very similar in character and feel to the Fourniers but I have to say that the 605s just “feel” like a higher quality deck. Perhaps one minor detail that makes me like Fourniers better is the size. The Piatniks are just a tad thicker than the 605s and having a slightly thinner stock just seems to make stiffer stock feel more controllable. Overall this is a good deck and I’ll likely enjoy using it but I don’t foresee it knocking any of my top 5s out of their respective spots.

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Piatnik Club: (1 Week Update)

Overall these cards have maintained their snappy power but certain fanning and performance characteristics are on the decline. They already have the feel of a deck that could conceivably last a good long time provided they are well cared for(eg. in hands other than mine )

Fanning: 7
A drop here as they are starting to get a bit clumpy. Not large clumps yet, so far just in groups of two or three cards, but enough to wonder how long they can be performable.

Spring Energy:9
Very little reduction in this stat.

Dribble:8
The dribble has gotten a bit easier and these cards will work ok for dribble based sleights but probably not good enough for dribble based flourishes.

Crimp Hold/Recovery: 6(hold)/8(recovery)
The deck has really maintained itself well. That said it still doesn't seem to hold a crimp very well.

Single Card Glides: 6
I can only give this a 6. While little has changed with the top card glides the bottom card glides are starting to require a break in order to ensure clean separation from the pack.

2+Obfuscations: 7
Another drop here. Diving board DLs and spin moves are very secure but the increasing clumpy nature of the deck is making push-off type DLs very unreliable.

Additional thoughts:
Well they performed and felt so much like a Fournier OOB that I expected them to age in a similar way as well. That doesn't seem to be the case. The Fournier fans and glides seem to improve once broken in but I'm detecting noticeable drops with the Piatnik. While both cards have a smooth, plastic coated finish perhaps the final varnish used by Fournier is a better formula. However, let me mention one other strong possibility. I am always a bit rough on my review decks but I think I have been particularly so with the Piatniks. For some reason I got it in my head to practice an aerial that included a hacky sack kick in it. (Don't ask why...I had delusions of Dan and Dave skills!) Naturally practicing aerials with kicks in them has a tendency of causing more than the usual abuse to a deck. In the week I have had them they have been picked up off the ground more than about any other card I have reviewed. So even though the scores after a week are much lower than the Fournier I'd give these the benefit of the doubt and say that the two cards are close in quality and performance. Though I still think they look a little boring I'm still having a lot of fun with this deck.

[Alex Hess]

I really like how colorful the Joker looks. There are some nice subtleties on some of these cards that I really enjoy (mostly the colors).

While looking these up I found another design which I think looks really sick:


I am curious, during my searches I found TONS of different "Piatnik" cards, but a lot of them looked cheap (particularly the ones Kardwell carries). Do you know if all the varieties are printed on the same stock or if its just the Club edition?

Cheers,

[eostresh]

Alex what you posted is an image of the Piatnik "Wheels" deck. You are showing a bridge size but I have seen them printed poker sized. I couldn't find a place to buy any poker sized "Wheels" for the review.

As for the question on stock and finish, I cannot say for sure that all Piatniks use the same stock and finish though I did get a different deck of Piatniks that does seem to use the same stock. I'll post an appendix for this review that discusses that other deck.

About "looking cheap?" Personally...I agree. I think the clubs, "look cheap," as I mentioned in the review. Here is the thing about Piatnik. Their specialty is bridge decks. On those decks they print a variety of back and face designs and many of them look quite beautiful. Their poker decks seem, for the most part, to have very simple, classical designs that some might say look "cheap" or at least, "boring." I pesonally find the Wheels to be an exception though, as I said, I couldn't find a poker sized for sale. (by switching my browser settings to German I found a few but I don't speak German so I passed on them)

So my current take is that finding poker sized Piatniks is becomming a chore. In the magic community Bicycle has begun to dominate not only the North American market but the European as well. If you surf around that website that I linked you will find a bunch of gaffs for the Piatnik Clubs so I suspect that Piatnik still has a local following of magicians in Austria and other countries in the area. I wouldn't say these cards are rare...but definitly hard to come by in the North American market.

Here is the last tidbit. They produce a card called the Piatnik Luxury. It is absolutly the most beautiful deck of cards I have ever held. It is the one that I will do the appendix on. I am going to give you guys a link to a teaser video I shot. This is "just among friends." My rendition of The Queens is pretty crappy so I dare not show it elsewhere. I mostly shot this as a teaser for my current review project that includes mostly European cards so I was kind of poking a little fun at the Eurotrash, techno, raver croud. I decided not to post it elsewhere as I would like to get some better footage of "The Queens" to introduce the Piatnik Lusury editions. So consider this video a work in progress and I'll take any feedback you guys have. (I dare not show this at T-11...those "Cardist Nazis" would eat me alive!)

Eurotrash Review Teaser on Vimeo

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Piatnik Club: (2 & 1/2 Week Update)
Okay so I haven’t been ignoring this review but the combination of a mild case of tendonitis and being caught in the middle of a move kind of stalled my updates. I have been recording the hours on this decks and by those scores I’m a few hours shy of completing a third week. These already feel as if they will go the distance(4 weeks) so I thought I would update now and then again at the end of the four weeks. Overall I can say that these a a good durable practice deck but they are not holding up as well others I have tried.

Fanning: 7
Still performing OK in this category. They are a functional card for fanning specific techniques but not exceptional.

Spring Energy:6
Well the Korean summer is at it’s peak meaning lots of heat and humidity. The smooth finished Piatniks are holding up better than most USPCC cards in these conditions but nevertheless, I do attribute much of the weakened stock to the weather conditions as much as the abuse I have put it through.

Dribble:7
The softening stock that was aiding the dribble in the last update is starting to be offset by a finish that is getting filthier and clumpier.

Crimp Hold/Recovery: 6(hold)/7(recovery)
The only change here is that the stock is not recovering as well from crimps.

Single Card Glides: 5.5
As it ages and the finish gets dirtier and humidity impregnates the deck it seems the glides are the most effected. There are times where this deck almost feels like an omni deck it can become so stiff. Usually a quick dribble will break up the clumps but for some reason glides have become problematic but fans are still tolerable. I’m leaving it at a 5.5 for now. The glides are not bad enough to warrant terminating the review but I am still catching small breaks before doing glide moves to ensure extra cards are not carried away unexpectedly.

2+Obfuscations: 7
The Piatniks seem to do well in most 2+O moves except for push off techniques. The growing clumpy nature of the cards seems to be causing extra cards to be come along for the ride in most push off techniques.

Additional thoughts: Overall there is nothing about the Piatnik that really stands out after two and a half weeks other than the durability. It’s one other bright spot is that it performs remarkably well for multi-packet and aerial cuts. This would be a great deck for people interested in learning those techniques.

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Piatnik Club: (4th Week and Final Update)

Well I have to admit that at the end of the 4th week it is actually performing better than it was on my last update. The primary reason seems to be that many of the clumping issues seemed to have worked themselves out. It is similar to how a Fournier recovers after washing but in this case it sort of just happened. I'm not sure how much the humidity played a role in this though one way or the other the Piatnik made it a full four weeks.

Fanning: 8
This actually improved as the clumpiness went away.

Spring Energy:6
Still a six...if that. Perhaps the biggest difference between this at the Fourniers is the degradation of it's stiffness and springiness.

Dribble:7
The dribble on these still won't match some of the Bee and Tally-Ho brands even when it starts fanning better and the stock softens.

Crimp Hold/Recovery: 6(hold)/6(recovery)
Perhaps the biggest reduction over the last week and a half was the recovery characteristics of the deck. Never a deck with a good crimp hold, the recovery is now starting to show a lot of wear on the deck. You will need a strong crimp at this point if it is to survive any shuffling.

Single Card Glides: 8
What almost caused an early end to this review is now one of the Piatnik's strong attributes. All top and bottom, one hand and two handed, glides are functioning quite well indeed.

2+Obfuscations: 7
About the same as in the last update. Push-offs seem to be the biggest weakness though not that bad and diving boards perform a little better than an 808. Spin type doubles and corner displays are about the same as an 808. Overall a solid average performance but considering the age of the deck it is still quite impressive.

Final thoughts:
Good buy with lots of durability. The Fournier's ran across the 4 week finish line, the Steamboats walked across it, and the Piatniks kind of limped across it...but they still made it! It is kind of hard to dis anyone who runs a marathon...even if they are last place. I am struggling with many mixed feelings about the Piatnik Club. On one hand they never did perform at the level of some of my favorites but you can't deny their longevity. They have a relatively boring back design and the court cards are nothing outstanding but the overall look still has some appeal to me. Perhaps it is because of their association with the legendary Tommy Wonder? Perhaps it is because they are a rare card for people in North America? One way or the other I am reasonably confident that if you are a fan of stiff stocks, thick stocks, or smooth stocks, you will not be disappointed by the Piatnik Club. If you manage to find some of these don't hesitate to pick them up.