I got some Guardians

Just got a brick of Bicycle Guardians in the mail today. My hands are pretty dry and cold right now so I haven’t had time to really jam with them yet, but I can comment on the aesthetics for now.

They’re sexier in person. I saw the photos before and liked ‘em, but somehow seeing it person was much cooler.

The box has a matte finish which I really like. A lot of the glossier boxes started to bleed and didn’t always bode well with me. I like the look of the matte finish here, and I guess I’ll find out if it really stands through time too. The box is very sexy and something that actually looks cool in my hands or on my desk.

The cards themselves are also nicer in person. Usually I’m not a fan of all black in the back, but there is nice shades of gray going on here that give it some extra sort of detail. Granted if you look closely you’ll see dots, but even when I’m manipulating the cards myself, I don’t see ‘em, so it’s not an issue at all. The one thing that gets me a bit is that the design is all dark but with a big white border around it. I think part of what makes this seem a bit odd at first is that traditional Bicycle/Tally Ho cads have a second thin white border inside the design.

Another thing that immediately struck me was the double-back card. Now first off it’s neat that they have this card (even though I don’t have any use for it). But the part that immediately struck me was that one of the sides of the double-back totally doesn’t match the rest of the cards. The reason, I imagine, is because they had a different ink used for printing the face than the back, causing it to be a bit darker. But when I fanned them out I totally noticed the difference. I think it’s definitely possible that laymen might not notice, it may not be a big deal… I won’t attempt to find out, but maybe somebody will.

So far so good, time to give ‘em a whirl… will break ‘em in, play around, and see what other people think.