We are excited to offer this exclusive poker deck that we recently completed for the New York based company, Hyde Park Mouldings, one of the premier architectural moulding companies in the world. Working closely with the owner, David Nassim, we were able to bring the artwork of his skilled craftsman, Vincent Kallenbaum, together with our playing card design sensibility to create one unique and handsome deck.

• Hyde Park Dark / print run of 2500 decks / only 250 available to the public
• 52 playing cards / 2 jokers all with original artwork by Hyde Park Craftsman, Vincent Kallenbaum
• 2 ad cards that form a diptych
• sculpted emboss design on luxurious tuck box stock
• gold foil detail on tuck
• first edition custom seal
• bicycle playing card stock with air cushion (linen) finish
• printed by the United States Playing Card Company
• made in the USA

Having travelled the world for years in search of the perfect card finish, the fruits of DMC's extensive travels are finally here ... the ELITES V5: PHANTOM FINISH.

Using a slightly thicker stock, this finish is both more robust and long-lasting than many of the slimmer cardistry decks of today, and promises a much firmer handling of the cards. When coupled with Phill Smith's world-famous 'Optical Marking System' (which now includes full four-corner markings, Juan Tamariz's genius MNEMONICA numberings and a unique one-way back design), we believe this is truly the most powerful, comprehensive and usable deck ever created for magicians. The deck even arrives in Mnemonica stack, ready to go right out of the box!

With a LIMITED 1st EDITION run of just 1000 decks (printed in cobalt blue for the very first time), this deck marks a pivotal transition in the timeline of ELITES playing cards - now deck of choice to many thousands of professional magicians worldwide and voted by United Cardists as 'The Greatest Deck for Magicians' available in the world today.

Included within each deck is a language-free instruction card that clearly explains the marking system, a two way ‘crib’ card (that allows you to glimpse the full Mnemonica stack with ease) and two custom DMC jokers, one with an inbuilt card reveal. As with the previous ELITES V5s, the card faces have also been upgraded to an ultra high-definition rendition of the standard faces, and also feature a uniquely brilliant one-way marking system on the cards' indices themselves.

Featuring the incredible, unique, Optical Marking system, the new DMC ELITES: ROUGE Marked Deck is the fifth signature deck produced by Sovereign Playing Cards for elite British magician Drummond Money-Coutts. Each deck has been a collaboration between DMC (star of TV special Card Shark and 2015's Nat Geo series DMC Beyond Magic) and designer Phill Smith, combining their perfectionism and creativity to create a unique series of incredible decks. With a brace of serious improvements and upgrades on previous versions, the DMC ELITES: ROUGE Marked Deck is, quite simply, the best deck Sovereign has ever produced.

The deck features the fourth generation of the unique Optical Marking system, a powerful marking system designed specifically for the use of close-up and cabaret performers (as opposed to the gambling origin of many systems). The deck has an ingeniously hidden marking mechanic that is readable at great range, in poor light and with extreme speed. The system has been significantly refined over the last few years of development since it was first created. Each deck also now comes with a pictorial instruction card that explains the markings visually, without words.

The system hides the value and suit of the playing card in plain sight, with no decoding necessary, no mental working-out to do - it literally just says the value and the suit, clearly and visibly, with a huge visible range on it. All this incredible clarity and you can still comfortably hand the deck to a layman safe in the knowledge that even if they search for marks, they will still not find them. The DMC ELITES: ROUGE is the only deck on the market now with this unique system.

The deck has standard faces, and the finish is a completely new cardistry-grade stock and finish. Everything about the deck has been crafted to make it super useable, from the sturdy minimalist box, down to the deep red back color, to the card reveal hidden on the two custom Jokers. The DMC ELITES: ROUGE - the greatest marked deck in a generation and possibly the most useable deck for card magic available today.

These cards have been created with professional magic and mentalism performers in mind, but they could be put to work to gain an illicit advantage at the card table. If you want to crush your friends at snap, that's fine, have fun, but cheating at games where there is a gambled stake is unethical, immoral, and illegal. If you are caught, then you may be subject to prosecution by the law or violent reprisal from your marks. The technical skills required to cheat at the card table are fascinating to study, but Sovereign Playing Cards cannot be held responsible for any cheating that may be conducted using their equipment.