Custom Playing Cards by SuperiorPOD

EDIT: May 9, 2012, I only - cautiously -recommend them for small and non-emergency orders. They may not be the best at timely (if at all) correspondence.
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So I tried this company out to print some playing cards.

The shrink wrap packaging is nice, but...

The turn-around time for a single deck of 54 cards and a single tuckbox is not very fast. Initially I received an instant "status change" email regarding my order plus a scheduled print date, and then there's nothing. 12 days after the scheduled print date there's still no update in the online account, nor email. So I emailed them instead, asking for a status. No reply. A few days later it's shipped. So okay, at least there's no scamming going on, which shouldn't be the case since they have a bunch of loyal customers in their forum.

Anyway nobody cares. How does the product look?

Oh man it can fit another 10 cards in there! It's not a snugly fit, thus if packed against something else the box will be bent. OCD is acting up again... My guess is they left that much space on purpose, in case it's not for a regular poker deck but for a custom card game with special instructions. But then the creator will have to remove the shrink wrap to stuff it in don't they? Which business-minded creator would do that?

The black ink is not guaranteed to stay deep black (not very clear in this photo, but the left card's ink is lighter and more reddish than the pure black on the right). The variation in the blackness is not helping my OCD. It's fine to save money on their end, just like CreateSpace doesn't print the black in my comic in pure black.

For a positive note, the ink either dried very well or there was some varnish treatment (guessing). The ink did not rub off my fingers, so I may try to go for more black in the design next time.

Overall, it's not promising as a viable helper-business route, but for personal use it's good enough.