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Tate Loyal user NC 211 Posts |
http://www.plaincards.com was mentioned in some other forum or mail list and I finally got around to ordering a few decks. The cards are sold mainly for teachers to create special cards for learning games. What you receive is several pages of die cut cards, similar to the sheets of business cards you can run through your printer. One side has a back design already printed on it and the other side is blank. You also receive a sheet with a die cut card box.
There are a few drawbacks to these cards. Your printer must be a "straight pass" type of printer. If the sheet must curve to print, the cards may separate. The cards are perforated, although I've heard that you can lightly sand the bumps away with fine sandpaper. The back design is not like any regular deck of playing cards. And finally, the backs are coated, but the faces are not. I'm trying to find something to use on the cards to coat the face. Anyone have a suggestion? Ok, with all that, I'm still glad I ordered these cards. Why? I have a special deck that would be far too costly to have printed. It is an ESP deck with 52 different symbols. (Actually, each card has two symbols. There are four outer or "border" symbols and 13 inner or "picture" symbols. Each ESP card is equivalent to a regular playing card and can be setup in a stack.) Imagine the cost of printing a minimum order for an individual card, times 52! Also, I can play around with small runs of packet trick type effects. I can produce a Three Card Monte (flap type) with my business card on the playing card. Is anyone else using these cards? If so, please post your experiences and how you are using them. Tate Elliott |
sehrgut Regular user Augusta, GA 105 Posts |
You know, I've been looking for something like that. I have some effects I'd like to make custom packets for. I'm likewise curious as to other folks' experiences with these cards.
Oh, and since this thread was originated, plaincards.com has started carrying a coated-face line of cardstock as well. It has some sort of slight waterproofing (I believe . . . ) on the faces, which makes them both printable and coatable. They come with a spray coating that you apply to the finished cards. The slick coating sits on top of the waterproofing and makes a layer above the ink just like any other coated card. Some caveats, though. It appears (though they do not explicitly state as much) that the coated backs cannot handle laser printing: unfortunate, since colour laser would make much more permanent and vivid cards than inkjet. Also, their QuickCards software is Windoze-only. However, Mac and Linux users should have little trouble whipping up a template in their favourite graphics program (i.e. AppleWorks/OpenOffice, or even PhotoShop or InDesign) and print them from there. Now, as far as the perfs go, check with printshops in your area for a foam paper-sanding block. We use these to take irregularities off the edge of things like big stacks of freshly-cut business cards, and they work great for smoothing out microperfs. (Actually, if you order a very small run of business cards from most printshops, they're running them off on Avery microperf business cards on a colour laser printer . . . ) Cheers! Keith
"It is February, and time to take ink and weep.
One must always write of February while weeping." -Boris Pasternak "That night something of youth and beauty died in the elder world." -H.P. Lovecraft |
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