Spirit II Red MetalLuxe Bicycle Playing Cards

This is one of the finest decks of cards I've ever had the chance to behold, and quite frankly, I'm honored to have it in my collection. The beautiful metallic ink on the box is a beautiful start. The card backs feature a very ornate scrollwork design with keys at the center, the "key head" being a spade design. The card fronts have a standard white background, but are completely custom thru the deck, including the fonts, pips and the arrangement of the pips on the two thru ten cards. The index pips are nicely done, as the pip on each card is actually designed to be the head of a key. The court cards, while still symmetrical, feature more of a two dimensional "straight on" view as opposed to the standard profile view, and the background and border of the court cards features a sort of stained glass window design. All of the aces have a little bit of scrollwork, but the ace of spades is embellished over the top with an amazing design featuring two crossed keys at the center. The two full sized jokers are just as amazing, also featuring crossed keys, with one joker featuring a "mask of comedy" (of sorts), the other featuring a "mask of tragedy". With all due respect to an incredible ace of spades, the jokers, in my opinion, are reason alone to buy this deck. Here's some free advice to future artists and designers of playing cards: Crossed keys are ALWAYS a great design element!