First, putting a want ad on Alibaba is asking for trouble - i doubt any good playing card manufacturer is monitoring that and the one that do respond probably don't specialize in card printing and don't have the equipment to make them efficiently at high quality. In China, its common for someone to say they can make something even if they can't do it well - they re hungry for business.

You need to search Alibaba to find companies doing the manufacturing for Bicycle or other big companies and ask them if they do custom printing. I found a lot: http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?SearchText=playing+cards...

If you say you are looking for 10k+ decks, they may do your samples for free. I've never had printing done over here, but with metal and plastic parts, we have engineering drawings for them with tolerancing, surface finish, etc. so they know if the part is good or rejected. Perhaps you could make a similar document showing placement of the die cut, lamination info, etc.

I'm traveling in China now visiting factories. DM me if you have questions or need a translator.