My daughter first attempted reading the Harry Potter series of books when she was in fourth grade, but had very little interest in them. She switched to the Twilight series, loved it, and became obsessed with it for a few years. When she was in seventh grade, she picked up Harry again, read all of the books, watched all of the movies, and has since become obsessed with that series. This meant that many of her birthday and holiday gifts centered around this theme, and one of the items she received was the Harry Potter Good vs. Evil Double Deck Playing Cards Tin.

Having very little interest in the Harry Potter series, I never made it through the first book, though I have seen most of the movies, and at first I thought that this was some type of card game that was played by the characters. It is not.  It is also not any type of game, such as trivia, about the series.  Simply, it is two standard decks of playing cards in a tin case.

The tin container is just large enough to hold two decks of cards, in boxes, side by side.  The metal is rather thin, and our has a number of dents in it from either being dropped or stepped on.  The bottom of the box is black and the top has "Harry Potter" in raised writing with "Good vs. Evil" underneath it.   It also has a picture of Harry himself, from the chest up, pointing his wand, along with Lord Voldemort's face.

Upon opening the tin, which is easy to do, you will see two boxes of cards that have "Harry Potter" written at the top and "playing cards featuring your favorite characters" across the bottom.  The red box is the "good" set and the greenish/blue one is "evil".

You can easily tell which cards go to which set since the backs of one have Harry Potter's face on a red background with "GOOD" written on the bottom, and the backs of the second set have a closeup picture of Lord Voldemort on a greenish/blue background and "EVIL" written on the bottom.  The fronts of the cards feature photographs of characters from the movies, along with the standard suits and numbers found on playing cards.  The border of the good cards is white, while the evil cards are on a black background.

There are two characters by number, with the two black and two red suits for each having the same character.  For example, The 2 of  Spades and the 2 of Clubs each have a picture of Dobby the House Elf while the 2 of Hearts and the 2 of Diamonds have Hedwig the Owl.  In this set, Luna Lovegood and Hermione Granger are the Queens, with Ron Weasley and Severus Snape as the Kings, and Dumbledore and Harry Potter on the Ace cards.   Pictures of Harry, Hermione and Ron are on the three Joker cards, and these are different poses than those on the regular cards.

Since the background color on the Evil set is black, the numbers and suits are printed in blue.  Here, the Jokers are represented by Lord Voldemort, Peter Pettigrew and Draco Malfoy.    The Queens are Professor Dolores Umbridge on the Heart and Diamond card and Bellatrix Lestrange on the Spade and Club card.  Bellatrix can also be found on the 3 of Hearts and Diamonds, while Harry Potter's cousin Dudley Dursley is on the 3 of Clubs and Spades.  Not all of the cards have people on them, and the 2 of Hearts and Diamonds has a Basilisk of Salazar Slytherin while the 2 of Spades and 2 of Clubs features Nagini, Lord Voldemort's snake.

So as not to mix the cards up, my daughter will only allow one set of cards to be used at the same time, and depending on whether she is in a "good" or "evil" mood determines which box is opened.

The plastic coated cards themselves are standard playing card size and shape so that any card game requiring the typical fifty-two cards, plus jokers, can be played with them.  I paid $12.99 for the two sets of cards in the tin, and they have held up as well as any other playing cards we have had.  A true fan would definitely appreciate the Harry Potter Good vs. Evil Double Deck Playing Cards Tin.


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 12.99
Type of Toy: Other
Age Range of Child: Whole Family