What is Cartelago? Playing Cards, Magic, and Card Culture from Los Angeles
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Cartelago is a playing-card and magic studio from Los Angeles, built for people who actually live with cards in their hands.
That means magicians. Cardists. Collectors. People who care about how a deck looks in motion, how it feels after real practice, and whether the object has a reason to exist beyond another printed tuck box.
The studio was founded around the work of Franco Pascali and Jake Crossman. Franco brings the card work: magic, cardistry, performance, and obsessive handling. Jake brings the digital and product side. Together, the brand sits somewhere between premium deck releases, magic education, and playing-card culture.
The Cartelago line started with Standards, an everyday-carry deck with a clean black-and-white identity and practical features for magic. Retail listings from Vanishing Inc., PlayingCardDecks.com, and Butterfly Magic Store all place that early deck in the specialty playing-card and magic ecosystem, with repeated references to USPCC production and crushed Bicycle stock.
Mirinos pushed the visual identity further. The deck became a collector and cardistry object with a more recognizable back design. Portfolio52 records Mirinos as a 2022 Cartelago deck, and community threads around F1 later surfaced Mirinos and Standards again as collectors tried to identify the cards seen on screen.
Today, Cartelago is still small, still specific, and still built around the same promise:
Everything and Anything Playing Card Culture.
If you are here for the current deck, start with Mirinos BLACKOUT. If you are here for Franco's magic, start with the advanced magic archive.
Sources and references
- Cartelago owned article: https://cartelago.la/blogs/press/what-is-cartelago
- Vanishing Inc.: https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/playing-cards/cartelago-playing-cards/
- PlayingCardDecks.com: https://playingcarddecks.com/products/cartelago-playing-cards-uspcc
- Butterfly Magic Store: https://www.butterflymagicstore.com/cartelago-playing-cards/
- Portfolio52: https://portfolio52.com/deck/21065/view