We’ve seen no shortage of Kickstarter success stories over the past weeks, but it’s always amazing to hear about playing cards that are somehow able to meet their funding goals in short periods of time, and the Successor playing cards by The Gentleman Wake (TGW) is no exception.
The Kickstarter project went live yesterday, and within just five minutes, it met its funding goal of $99,750. Not only that, but it also completely smashed that goal and is sitting at $243,000+ worth of pledges at the time of writing.
Designed in collaboration with Kevin Cantrell, The Successor Playing Cards evokes art from the 15th-century cathedrals, canvases, and manuscripts. All of the aspects from the pips to the courts are customized, featuring artworks that combine ancient historical illustration with the classical design of a deck of playing cards.
All of the Aces featured massive pips with ornate designs. The numbered cards featured pips with golden details within, arranged with smaller icons in-between spaces. The court cards are illustrated close to the classical courts yet based on historical references to the medieval times.
Both Jokers featured well-done illustrations of historical figures in a royal kingdom: The Annoiter, the priest who will coronate the royal, and the Anointed, the royal who will be crowned on the throne. The series tells a story of a tale of trials and betrayal of royal succession.
There are a total of 6 editions in the series: 2 standard editions and 4 exclusive limited editions. There are two different card back designs within the series: one featured an hourglass on the center (the first four editions), while the other featured an ambigram of “Successor” on the center (the last two editions). The center element is surrounded by an intricate framework decorated with royal crowns, filigrees, and most importantly, TGW’s mascot the rhinoceros beetle.
The standard editions are “Regal Red” and “Royal Blue”, featuring red and blue main colors with Pantone metallic ink on the details. The first two exclusive editions are “Imperial Black” and “White Monarch”, featuring black and white main color with gold cold foiling on the details – the cards for “White Monarch” will be gilded with gold foil.
The last two exclusive editions are “Dynastinae Rex” and “Dynastinae Prism”, featuring green and purple main colors with gold and holographic cold foiling on the details respectively – the cards for “Rex” will be gilded with gold foil, while cards for “Prism” will be gilded with holographic foil. The cards will be produced by Cartamundi on B9 Slimline stock with a linen finish.
The tuck box for the decks in the series is heavily customized with intricate artworks with many levels of finishes. They are done with premium quality matte stock with 5 layers of metallic foiling complete with 3D strategic embossing. The tuck box for “Rex” featured gold and black holographic foiling while the tuck box for “Prism” featured purple and holographic foiling. For both “White Monarch” and “Dynastinae Prism”, the tuck box has a sleeve made of matte stock with a zinc-alloy metal cast sculpture attached to it – gold sculpture for “White Monarch” and silver sculpture for “Dynastinae Prism”. All of the tuck boxes are done by Studio Pression from France.
To sum up the collection, the series is completed with a custom-made storage box to contain all of the available editions. This box is made of piano-black lacquered wood with laser-etched gold foil inlays along with a gold-plated zinc-alloy metallic sculpture lid. The box is fashioned to look like the king’s royal sarcophagus.
Pledge starts from $19 for a single deck of standard edition to up to $400 to get a complete set on Kickstarter. Funding ends on June 24, 2022.
