The Gentleman Wake‘s (TGW) previous crowd-funded project, The Successor Playing Cards, received positive feedback from the playing card community. The brilliance of Kevin Cantrell’s work never ceased to impress.
After the success with the third series in TGW’s lineup, Kevin invited TGW to establish his own luxury playing cards series – called “Cantrell A Priori” (shortened as CAP). It will be a four-deck series line-up, with each coming with a thematic theme and two different color variants. Kevin will design these decks, while TGW will produce them. To start the CAP series, here is the first one- to pay homage to the father of modern printing, Johannes Gutenberg. Introducing The Goldsmith Playing Cards.
The Goldsmith Playing Cards come in two main colors: black and white. The tuck box features premium matte stock with fully detailed artwork done in metallic foiling and embossing. The front side of the box features an illustration of Gutenberg with his assistant using the printing press at nighttime complete with a beautiful intricate border and a scroll presenting the title of the deck. The left side of the box is made to look like a book’s leather-bound cover. The back side of the box mirrors the card back design.
The top side of the box features a small shelf filled with books and an open book. The flap features an icon of the printing press, the machine which Gutenberg invented that revolutionized the world of printing. The box will have an interior pattern made of gold foil. The tuck box is printed with Studio Pression
The card back design features a two-way illustration of a side profile of Gutenberg embedded into the beautiful luxurious border filled with leaves and flowers. There is a ribbon banner with Latin text. The background color is based on the respective edition: black/white.
All of the Aces have fully illustrated power pip, all are made in reference to the life achievement of Gutenberg. The number cards feature customized pips based on the illustrations of the Aces complete with small symbols on the small spaces between the arrangement of the pips. The court cards are illustrated as two-way figures in illustrious clothes in the style of the era.
The Jokers feature two illustrations of a scene painting with a small bookshelf: one features the Pilgrim’s Mirror, and the other features the Black Plague. All of the painstaking details of the card artwork will have gold cold foil – to create the luxurious aspects of the decks. To add more, the cards will be gilded with gold foil.
The decks will come inside a custom-made deck case made with walnut wood. It has an acrylic cover to keep the decks closed in it, complete with neodymium magnets to keep it tight. The case is complete with a custom-made coin, which it is slotted on the centre of the cover. The coin for the series features the same look as the card back design artwork – it will be made with 24k Gold. This display format will be applied for the next three deck series in CAP.
The cards will be printed with Cartamundi. The set is priced at $100 – there are only 1000 sets made, with each person having a limit to get 3 sets. The Pre-Order is live on TGW’s site NOW!
