Why does he/you need so much money for designing cards?
The J Design decks are beautiful, and great quality.
If
USPC was making this deck for him, it would be pro quality all around, but the minimum order quantity ("MOQ") is gigantic for just one back color. (It was 2,500 decks a few years ago, but I last heard "5,000" when I asked in 2011.) So they likely wanted him to make 10,000 decks for two back colors. (They consider a change in the back color to be like two different designs.)
Add in a few extra features -- like that nice two-deck setup box -- and you'd go over $35,000, easy. Given the look of these cards, he may have been kicking in a good portion of the cost himself.
Jason was also vying for funding while there were several deck designers trying to get funding on kickstarter. The J Design was the nicest design out there, but put a dragon or a "fantasy theme" on a card back, and some people will back that deck, and not this one, no matter how nice it is.
(When I floated the Key West cards there, I think there were four or five other decks of cards looking for funding.)
And the playing card world is very different from the chip world. (Example: Most poker chip collectors are 40 or older. Most playing card collectors are magicians whose average age is "low-teens."
I'm willing to help as much as I can. I'll wait and see if he gets back to me.
