"Thank you for calling Jerry's Nugget Casino. For guest services, press Zero; to place orders at Jerry's Nugget bakery, press One; for employment information, press..."
I ended the call.
Calling the casino felt pointless.
We tried emailing, too, but we never heard back.
Nobody seems to have definitive information about these cards. We know at least one magician has interacted directly with one of the casino's owners–more on this soon–but it's unclear whether they ever asked how many decks of "rare" Jerry's Nugget cards are even in existence.
We're on the quest to uncover the whole story around the Jerry's Nugget playing cards. Printed in 1970 and kept hidden for years, they were then sold at the casino gift shop for as low as one dollar per deck, only to become one of the rarest decks among magicians. Prices hit $500 on the secondary market at their peak.
We've since discovered the existence of what might be a Jerry's Nugget "whale"–a French magician with a stockpile of 14,000 decks. That number sounds extraordinarily high, and one might assume that a quantity that significant represents a controlling stake in the number of decks worldwide.
To figure out whether that is the case, we needed to establish two data points.
Firstly, the percentage of the total market someone must own to be a "whale" who can manipulate the price of everyone's items. We found a collectibles expert who would speak to us on this.
Secondly, we needed to try to establish the number of decks that ever existed. We were having much less luck with this; USPCC was proving challenging to contact, the casino wasn't replying to us, and yes, it did reach the point where I actually phoned the casino's front desk out of desperation.
