Disclosed is an assemblage of various playing cards arrived at by designing each card essentially based on symbolism, text, and spiritual images found in the sacred writings of a particular religion, or “Faith.” Each of the playing cards displays wording and/or images corresponding to images and/or names of selected sections of those sacred writings. The titles or names of the sacred writings designate what commonly functions as “denominations” in conventional card games. Specific Faith-oriented artistic images function as “suits.” In the preferred embodiment, the cards correspond to names and images found in the Books of the Christian Bible. The disclosure is also applicable to the concepts and sacred writings of other religions. The playing cards serve to encourage and challenge persons to increase their knowledge of, and gain greater understanding and appreciation of their Faith, in an uplifting and socially interactive manner.

A device for production of sets of playing cards is provided, and includes: a printing means for printing randomly ordered playing cards; an identification means to identify one or more defective playing cards, having a feedback unit to instruct the printing means to reprint the defective playing cards; and an evacuation means to evacuate the one or more defective playing cards.

A suit and a rank are printed on one surface of a card base sheet, a back pattern is printed on a back surface, an intermediate layer having a black layer or a color layer similar to black is provided on the card base sheet to make transmission of visible rays difficult, and ink containing no carbon is used for printing the suit and the rank, and thus the intermediate layer prevents the transmission of the visible rays from the back surface and the suit and the rank printed with the ink containing no carbon transmit infrared rays, such that it is difficult for both the visible rays and the infrared rays to distinguish the suit and the rank from the back surface, and one set or a plurality of sets of decks are constituted by individual cards cut from the card base sheet by a cutting machine.

A set of playing cards comprises N playing cards, N>1, each playing card having a detectable card identity string. This card identity string is a series of M characters. The set of playing cards is provided with a set identity string, this set identity string being composed of N groups of R characters, R<=M. Each card identity string provides to the set identity string one group of R characters taken from the series of M characters of this card identity string. The sequence of said N groups of R characters in the set identity string is identical to the sequence of the N cards in the set of playing cards.

Internally illuminable playing cards are disclosed. The disclosed playing cards may include a polymeric body, at least one light-emitting diode (LED) at least partially inside of the polymeric body, a battery (or a slot in the polymeric body for receiving a battery) for providing power to the at least one LED, and a switch at least partially inside the polymeric body and operatively connected to the at least one LED to facilitate turning the at least one LED on and off. As can be understood based on this disclosure, the internally illuminable playing cards can be used for flourishing and cardistry techniques, in a manner similar to the way typical paper playing cards are used for such techniques.

An image is formed on a principal surface and a side face of a card. A thermal transfer printing apparatus includes a first feeding unit configured to feed an intermediate transfer medium including a transfer layer that is disposed on one surface of a substrate in such a manner as to be peelable from the substrate, a second feeding unit configured to feed a thermal transfer sheet including a colorant layer disposed on one surface of a base material, a printing unit configured to heat the thermal transfer sheet based on image data and transfer an ink of the colorant layer onto the transfer layer to form an image, and a transfer unit configured to heat the intermediate transfer medium and transfer the transfer layer having the image formed thereon onto a principal surface and a side face of the card.

There is provided a shuffled playing card, wherein a suit and a rank are printed on one surface of a card base sheet, and a back pattern is printed on another surface, different sheet IDs for one card base sheet or each of a plurality of card base sheets are printed on the card base sheet, one deck or a plurality of decks are formed by individual cards cut by a cutting machine from the card base sheet, the one deck or the plurality of decks are shuffled by a shuffle machine to form a set of shuffled playing cards, different shuffled playing card IDs for each set are assigned to the shuffled playing card as ID codes, and the sheet ID of the playing card constituting the shuffled playing card and the shuffled playing card ID are associated with each other in a database.

There is provided a shuffled playing card, wherein a suit and a rank are printed on one surface of a card base sheet, and a back pattern is printed on another surface, different sheet IDs for one card base sheet or each of a plurality of card base sheets are printed on the card base sheet, one deck or a plurality of decks are formed by individual cards cut by a cutting machine from the card base sheet, the one deck or the plurality of decks are shuffled by a shuffle machine to form a set of shuffled playing cards, different shuffled playing card IDs for each set are assigned to the shuffled playing card as ID codes, and the sheet ID of the playing card constituting the shuffled playing card and the shuffled playing card ID are associated with each other in a database.

The present disclosure relates to a playing card, where a suit and a rank are printed on one surface of a card base sheet, a back pattern is printed on a back surface, an intermediate layer having a black layer or a color layer similar to black is provided on the card base sheet to make transmission of visible rays difficult, and ink containing no carbon is used for printing the suit and the rank. The intermediate layer is configured to prevent transmission of visible rays from the back surface. The suit and the rank printed with the ink containing no carbon are configured to transmit infrared rays. The intermediate layer and the suit and rank printed with the ink containing no carbon are configured such that it is difficult for both the visible rays and the infrared rays to distinguish the suit and the rank from the back surface.

A print finishing machine has a die and a drive mechanism. The drive mechanism is driven by a motor and the drive mechanism is configured to drive a stack of sheets of material through the die in order to cut the stack according to the shape of the die.