Murphy’s Magic – Sumi Original Craft Playing Cards, Kickstarter 2019, USPCC, Kyoukai, ToKMR, Card Experiment, Hong Kong, limited edition of 1200, numbered seal, Japanese tattoo art form, Wabori, nine tailed Fox. Brand new, sealed, MM

Description

– Launched Feb 2019 on Kickstarter, 493 backers pledged HKD$264,159, out of HKD$100,000 goal, to help bring this project to life.
– Check out the YouTube review by VJose32

– Available editions:
1. Sumi Playing Cards – Bicycle Tale Teller Kitsune Regular Deck
2. Sumi Playing Cards – Unbranded Tale Teller Kitsune Regular Deck (meaning there is no “Bicycle” logo on the tuck)
3. Sumi Playing Cards – Tale Teller Kitsune Craft Edition (White) – letterpressing red on inner tuck case

4. Sumi Playing Cards – Bicycle Myth Maker Kitsune Regular Deck
5. Sumi Playing Cards – Unbranded Myth Maker Kitsune Regular Deck
6. Sumi Playing Cards – Myth Maker Kitsune Craft Edition (Blue), Letterpressing silver ink on inner tuck case

7. Sumi Playing Cards – Original Craft Deck, limited edition of 1200, numbered seal

– From the Kickstarter page, in the designer’s own words:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cardexperiment/sumi-playing-cards-kitsune

“Ono, an inhabitant of Mino (says an ancient Japanese legend of A.D. 545), spent the seasons longing for his ideal of female beauty. He met her one evening on a vast moor and married her. Simultaneously with the birth of their son, Ono’s dog was delivered of a pup which as it grew up became more and more hostile to the lady of the moors. She begged her husband to kill it, but he refused. At last one day the dog attacked her so furiously that she lost courage, resumed vulpine shape, leaped over a fence and fled. “You may be a fox”, Ono called after her, “but you are the mother of my son and I love you. Come back when you please; you will always be welcome”. So every evening she stole back and slept in his arms.

Excerpt from Come and Sleep by the monk Kyoukai, 9th century AD

Sumi Playing Cards – Kitsune is Card Experiment’s 2nd collaboration with ToKMR Graphics following our highly successful Sumi Playing Cards campaign. In Kitsune, we continue to translate and transform the traditional Japanese tattoo art form of Wabori into playing card style, retaining as well as enhancing many of the interesting and delightful features we had in Sumi Playing Cards. The focus of Kitsune centers around the fox spirit, a staple in Japanese folklore. We scoured many different sources of folktales, stories and myths about fox spirits and selected a few well-known ones as sources of inspiration for the characters in the court cards. Kistune continues to serve as a homage to Wabori and faithfully represents the visual nuances and quality that is the hallmark of Japanese traditional tattoo once again, creating a visual playing card masterpiece like no other, a masterpiece that weaves fantastical stories of begone time with modern playing card aesthetics.

Illustrated by ToK, Illustrator & Graphic designer based in Japan and edited by Card Experiment based in Hong Kong.
Fully custom pips & courts.
Cards printed by the United States Playing Card Company. Made in USA.
Craft Edition Tuck cases made of Premium Cotton Gmund Paper from Germany.
Letterpressed ink/metallic foiled tuck cases for Craft Edition produced and assembled in Hong Kong.
Multilevel Embossed tuck cases. (Unlocked at STRETCH GOAL 2)

The card back features the nature motifs in a composition of Mandara and the Logo 墨/Sumi with 稲荷鳥居/Inari-dorii.

Regular edition features Bicycle branded Tuck cases by USPCC. Featuring art of 荼枳尼天の白狐(九尾化) / Ḍākinī’s Byakko who turns into nine-tailed Fox. Printed with metallic gold ink on Myth Maker Kitsune Regular Deck.

We are now working closely with a craft letterpress company in Hong Kong for printing of our Craft decks’ tuck cases. Proximity is our advantage. We have worked well with them in some projects and remained in regular and close correspondence to understand and optimize our processes and theirs for smooth production.

The tuck case will be gold foil stamped and letterpressed silver ink on premium cotton paper from Gmund Germany and then embossed (STRETCH GOAL 2).

STRETCH GOAL 1 // HKD$120,000 < UNLOCKED!>
All cards will be printed on Crushed Premium Stock!
STRETCH GOAL 2 // HKD$150,000 < UNLOCKED!>
Multilevel Embossing on Craft edition!
STRETCH GOAL 3 // HKD$200,000 < UNLOCKED!>
Inner tuck printing on Craft edition!

STRETCH GOAL 4 // HKD$230,000 < UNLOCKED!>

Sumi Original Craft Deck. A new deck featuring the design from the original Sumi deck, will be offered with enhancements in terms of better embossing and letterpressing, foil stamping and superior German paper stock.