What is your favourite pack of cards in your collection? Seeing as there are so many aspects in a deck, I thought it would be interesting to see what you like best in your packs of cards, so here is a few questions about your decks:

What is your favourite deck box?
What is your favourite back design?
What is your favourite face design?
What cards are you favourite for stock and finish?
What is your overall favourite deck?

It'd be interesting to see the differences and what you all see as your favourites!

For myself, here are my favourites:
Favourite box: Vintage Bicycle 1800's-love the old styled looking box
Favourite Back design:Bicycle Gold-Looks absolutely beautiful on a black surface
Favourite face design:Black Arcane by Ellusionist-Love the red on back and the mist on court cards
Favourite stock and finish: This would probably be Madison Rounders
Favourite overall deck: Vintage Bicycle 1800's-They are still very usable and so many people can appreciate them. The cards aren't too fancy so they don't distract from the magic.

I love Phoenix all the way around, just wish the Ace faces were a touch smaller. For stock and finish, the Superior from Expert PCC is awesome.

I really like the Alice in Wonderland Deck from Turn Style and Art of Play. I just love the design. Very elegant. I'm old school too. I love Tally Ho and Vintage Bikes as well.

For magic, you want a deck where the cards don't look too different from a normal deck, otherwise spectators get suspicious that it's not a normal deck. If they're too busy admiring the cards, or they look too unusual, it just distracts them from the effect you're doing, and actually makes your magic weaker.

For that reason, I also like the Vintage 1800s deck, because it looks very familiar, yet looks different. The card quality and handling is also excellent.

I also like some of the Theory 11 decks, especially the ones where the number cards are standard, and the main differences from a regular are just some customization of the Ace of Spades, the Joker, sometimes the court cards, and of course the card backs and game box, which are usually made to look sophisticated and classy. The Citizens deck and Monarch deck are good examples of this, they just look very professional and stylish from the moment you pull out the box, and yet won't distract from your magic.

I think one of these decks was even used in a film about magicians, wasn't it?

Not scientific, but I have found that unless they have seen much magic the people I've discussed it with don't have a sense of "normal cards". They usually describe a deck from a casino or with cats/dogs on the back.

I like the vintage Bicycle rider backs with the old style one way spade court cards. (As I have posted in other threads).

As a bit of history just last night we watched an old Perry Mason episode filmed in 1960. "The case of the singing skirt." The plot takes place around an incident at a poker club house. Early in the episode there was a shot of the rider backs with the KS clearly shown! I noticed it immediately and had my wife put the DVR on pause so we could view the cards!

A nice visual history of one series of Bicycle cards.

Yes those are the cards I remember from my youth and the ones mentioned in the Encyclopedia of Card Tricks page 18. "Reversed Court Card" by Jordan.

I totally agree. Besides, anyone with common sense would understand that gimmicked cards could be made in ANY back design, so that includes Bicycle. So if every magician in the entire world used Bicycle Rider Back cards people would assume trick cards have been eliminated? Your presentation more than anything leads people to suspect the cards.