Hi Aure,
The gilding (so far) seems pretty durable, although it must wear off in time the same way it does with any book that's edge-gilded. I've also managed to batter the corners of my box a bit already by carrying it around unprotected in my bag at school.
Hopefully that will just add to the deck's character. I lost my old, battered Rider Waite I'd had since my teens and a shiny new one just isn't the same!
Of course I'm going to keep a "good" copy of my deck as well that I won't actually use.
The sizes (measured from the real thing) are:
Deck: 2 7/8ths inch x 4 13/16ths inch x 1 1/4 inch deep
Box: 3 3/8ths inch x 5 1/4 inches x 2 3/8ths inch deep
or in metric:
Deck: 7.5cm x 12.3cm x 3cm
Box: 8.5cm x 13.3cm x 5.8cm
I'd already made deck-sized bags, I'm going to start making bigger ones to fit the box too as I personally prefer to carry my GT around with the box & book. It's such a gorgeous box, and it protects the deck well but keys and even the sturdiest of cardboard boxes are *not* a good combination swimming around at the bottom of a shoulder-bag!
Re the Amazon thing - the vast majority or pre-orders were at $25 and considering the amount of people who will now order from another source mean that it was unlikely to be a profit-making decision by Amazon to cancel the pre-orders. More likely, it's because USGS had committed to a release date and then (due to the avalanche) not met it. Instead of asking why, Amazon automatically cancelled it (probably because several other "release dates" have also been suggested in the past and then not happened). The timing, just days before it finally did get released, was just an ironic twist of fate - and we Australians love a little irony, so I'm fairly philosophical about it.
As long as people get their decks, I'll be happy. And it definitely shows the advantage of using a small, specialised online retailer over a huge impersonal company. I have Amazon links on my site as it's my only way to attempt to cover the costs of running the site, but I'm more than happy for people to order through Tarot Garden (hence me signing copies for them). Jeannette's been so great!