I've hand-marked plenty of decks in the past. Some decks designs are more "conducive" to marking than others.
The Elephant Deck is (in my experience) the most condusive to marking than any other back design because of a special property of the overall design. If you figure it out, drop me an email.
These decks are hand-marked with a special etching tool and a wall mounted magnifying unit. Takes about 2 hours labor. The result is aesthetically correct --- the marks are in plain sight but not detectable to the uninitiated. The angle of lighting or amount of light needed does not effect the reading of the marks.
The Elephant Deck makes simple markings ( no juice, no shading) a pleasure to work with.
