The Optimal Number of Decks for a Limited Edition Collectable?

 The fact is that I don't know how many numbered limited edition decks of cards I have. But today I'm thinking about them and I found five of them in a few minutes of searching.

I started thinking about them this week with the passing of Pim Leefsma as written up Joop Muller. Since I know Joop and I have one of the Pim Leefsma's decks, I took it out and admired it.  

And it got me to thinking, what is the ideal number of decks to print for a limited edition collectiable? Let's assume that the goal is for the deck to be a  collectable which is ever increasingly treasured (and valued). 

Print too many and there isn't enough scarcity for them to be highly treasured.  But if you can sell them all easily, you do make more sales right at the outset.  
Print too few and it's hard to establish any awareness of the deck. This second rules is generally true but it is less true if the artist or publisher has such a special reputation that a very limited print run does not limit awareness of the deck.  

Does the cost of publishing enter into the decision? Is it four times more expensive to print 1000 than 250?

Here's a handful of limited edition decks that have made it into my collection through the years.  I just noticed that they mostly have something in common. Try to figure it out and in any case, I'll explain it after showing the decks.

My Limited Edition Decks and their Total Produced
Pim Leefsma/Joop Muller - 250
Bosch by Sunish Chabba - 3200

Peter Wood 2000Pips - 1000

Cameo by Oxaliscards - 1500
E Lewis Aesop's Fables - 50

My Pim Leefsma deck is #108 out of 250.  The artwork is incredible and I can why Joop was highly motivated to get a deck created with it. Thanks Joop.

Pim Leefsma's Artwork on Playing Cards

My Bosch deck is 0152 of 3200.  I discovered Bosch's artwork in a tour of the Prado a year ago: amazing. What's astonishing is not just the artwork but while it looks super modern and part of surrealism, the truth is Hieronymus Bosch lived from 1450–1516 so his surrealistic work predates the modern movement by more than 500 years. Background note: Surealism is a cultural and artistic movement that began in the 1920s, primarily in Paris, aiming to liberate thought and human experience from the constraints of rationalism by exploring the subconscious, dreams, and the irrational. 

The Bosch artwork is presented as diptychs. The artwork is fantastical, religious, deeply symbolic, and it makes me realize how my understanding of this work is relatively superficial.

 

Bosch Playing Card Jokers

My Peter Wood transformation deck is #613 out of one thousand. I bought it (online) from Peter Woods when it first came out.  At the time, I was travelling regularly to London on business and tried to arrange a visit with him.  It never happened.

Peter Woods Transformation Deck
Note how the  nine hearts are integrated in the design

Let me point them out for you....

This Cameo deck is #1356 out of 1500.

I have #29 out of 50 of these hand-painted transformation decks by Elaine Lewis. 
Confession: To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how to interpret "hand-painted".  Does this mean, the art is done by hand and then reproduced? Does it mean that the black outlines of the art is done by hand, the deck is then produced, and then each card on each deck is hand-painted.  I could go retrieve the deck and hold it up to the light studying the texture to see if there is hand work on each card and if nobody answers the question for me, I might.

My collecting does not focus on modern limited editions.  Yet, I have at least five of them, why? What do these decks have in common?

 These decks were collected either because of my interest in transformation decks or my interest in fine art.  I don't seem to have collected any (or many) outside of the art or transformation arena.

My deck collecting   focuses on antique decks where scarcity has to do with the amount of remaining decks, not a calculation by a publisher of how to purposefully limit the supply to create scarcity and value.  My interest in cards start when the joker first appeared (I'm still primarily a joker collector) so I avoid decks from the 1860s and back.  

Want to learn more about my collection of playing cards and jokers?

My transformation decks
When and what was the first playing card joker?
Visiting Joop in Zaandijk 

Organizing Ten Thousand Jokers?

Check out the Jokers featuring the Birds and the Bees! 🐦& 🐝!

Or my article about all of my crescent moon jokers (old and modern)