Guide to Traditionally Cut Cards:

If you are a card magician who does a lot of shuffle work traditionally cut cards can make a big difference. But what playing cards have a traditional cut? The answer is more complicated than it seems!

What is a traditional cut?

Traditionally cut playing cards are when a card is cut face to back, instead of the usual back to face. It may seem like a small thing to most, in fact even many accomplished card magicians couldn’t tell the difference if asked. That said, for a certain breed of card magician, traditionally cut cards make a big difference. People who do a lot of shuffle based sleight of hand will probably notice a big difference with a traditionally cut card. Even if the most complicated shuffle you ever do is a faro, you will likely notice a difference with a traditional cut.

It gets its name because that is how all cards were cut prior to the 1980s. For various reasons USPCC changed the way they cut their cards and now cards generally only get traditional cuts when specifically requested in a run.

How can you tell if a card is traditionally cut?

The easiest way to tell is when a card comes fresh out of the box. Traditionally cut cards usually have a tell tale pattern of visible lines along the edges of the deck. It looks almost as if slightly different sized blocks of cards were stacked together in the same pack. Now when I say slight, I mean slight! As soon as you shuffle the cards a few times you will never see this again, even if you re-stack the deck in new deck order.

While that is a good visual indicator of a traditional cut there is no sure fire way to tell until you faro shuffle the cards together. Some guys test this with a tabled faro, but for me I usually use a one handed faro. With my own personal style of one handed faro the cards faro more smoothly back up in my hands with a traditional cut and more smoothly face up with a standard cut. Indeed my original interest in traditionally cut cards was because I could get them to weave more easily for a one handed faro.

What cards have a traditional cut?

In theory, that’s the idea of this mini guide, but sadly there is a catch. After viewing Jason England’s Table Faro 1on1 I learned something I didn’t know before. Whether you have a traditionally cut card or not isn’t necessarily predictable based on the kind of deck you buy! Most USPCC cards are no longer traditionally cut but sometimes different runs will get a traditional cut for various reasons. Therefore, occasionally even a cheap, off the shelf bicycle cards will have a traditional cut if you get lucky. Therefore, I can’t guarantee that some of the cards that I have reviewed as traditionally cut cards will be traditionally cut when you buy them…..bummer! That said there are a few cards that are specifically requested to be traditionally cut and a few more that will probably be traditionally cut.