The glue (the center layer of the stock) is bluish-black (to prevent the faces from showing through the back of the cards). You don't normally see much of it due to the way USPC cuts the cards, but if you sog up the edges of the paper with sweat and distress those edges at all (looking at you, cardists!) you will start to see that black glue exposed on the edges. This gives the edge of the deck a color. Not a new problem at all - Bicycle decks have been doing this since LONG before the factory change. It is just not always noticeable.
Current USPC stocks are very high quality. There was a short time period right after the move when USPC was printing on new machinery where decks were coming off with quality issues. Those problems have been resolved for years now, and the card quality is as high or higher than it ever was at Ohio. Hard to compare to Ohio decks anymore. Ohio decks are fairly rare these days, and they are also now YEARS old. Compare a 10 year old deck to a brand new deck, and you aren't comparing apples to apples anymore. All sorts of qualities of the deck change as it gets old, including the feel. The Kentucky decks that everyone rags on these days will probably feel pretty amazing in 10 years, haha.
Sweaty hands are the enemy of playing cards. They can kill the best deck out there in short order. I feel your pain. If I am playing with cards, I end up washing my hands a ton with soap and COLD water. This seems to help for a short period of time.
// L
