Everybody loves cards! But do you have a tuckbox?

[Darcy Burgess]

I can think of one or two games 'round here that have come out recently that involve cards -- custom or otherwise.

I thought that this might be a useful link for the prototype/playtest stage:

Keep your cards neat and tidy in a Tuckbox

Happy Winter!  (northern hemisphere...)

[Josh Roby]

Clever!

Now find me a webpage that die-cuts, assembles, and fills them!  ;)

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Hm. Yeah. This is cool enough that I'm willing to hire a sweatshop.

[Darcy Burgess]

grin.

actually, back when Tony was scaring up a press and a set of dies for his click-locks (how's that going, Tony?) I smacked my forehead really hard -- I found the threads just about the time that he was expecting to receive the thing.

the trick is: I'm a toolmaker (well, mould maker really -- but to people not in the biz, that's meaningless).  Building stuff like die-cut presses is what I do.

I'm always on the lookout for ways to apply my trade to my hobby -- and it's funny that diecutting tuckboxes comes up.

I'd assume that it would be much more cost effective to standardize your cardsize to a tuckbox currently in production rather than the other way 'round...but if you've got a garage full of underpaid workers, I could theoretically supply the hardware...

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Yeah, those little Thai girls are really clogging up the closet.

I'm not sure where one can get tuckboxes. It's hard enough just getting cards printed. If you, or someone, knows, that would be valuable information.

[Josh Roby]

The Indian press that I was looking at for Dynasty did the cards and the boxes.  I can probably scare up the URL if you're interested in shipping work overseas for production, Joshua.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

I'm interested because no one in the US seems interested in this. So it's India or Mumbai, I guess.

I'm surprised Cafépress doesn't do cards, and I'm disappointed that Lulu doesn't.

[guildofblades]

Well,

Tuck boxes for cards can be ordered through any number of paperboard box manufacturers. We order all of our boxes through a company named Columbus Box. Though to get the pricing we like, we generally have to order 2,500 to 3,500 boxes at one time. For our little card boxes, we had to order 5,000 boxes. Thats way too many boxes for one game, so we order blank white boxes and print our own artwork wraps (slips) to attach afterwards.

Our white card boxes cost us about $.09 each.

For a fairly significant cost in having a fancy die made, we could in theory print up about 20 different card boxes on large 28" x 40" press sheet. A 2000 quantity would run about $3200, plus maybe a bit extra to have them glued by the box manufacturer. So assuming (I haven't done the actual measurements) I could get 20 boxes up on a press sheet,  individual card boxes at a 2000 run would cost about $.08 to $.10 each (full color).

Now, if someone here can actually make the cutting dies, I would very much like to talk to you about this topic. We have all sorts of projects that use dies. Having the option to do the actual die work in house would be pretty darn useful.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com

[Mike Sugarbaker]

My copy of Under the Bed from GenCon Indy is now mostly missing, because I cracked it open to look at it and then put it back in my bag. Somewhere in transit, most of those loose cards went missing.

So yeah, some of y'all could stand to spend money on this, even overseas.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

It's something I'm looking into Mike. I'm sorry that happened.

Does anyone know these folks?

[daMoose_Neo]

I will say: Avoid PrintMasters. Talk to me for other details, just avoid them yup.

[Veritas Games]

It's something I'm looking into Mike. I'm sorry that happened.

Does anyone know these folks?

Carta Mundi is one of the most established card printers in the world.  Carta Mundi Belgium, I believe, printed the original Magic: The Gathering.  Carta Mundi USA was established to handle the growing American CCG market.  They've got competitive prices compared to other U.S. firms if you are doing business in the 3,000 to 5,000 decks range.  It looks like Yaquinto becomes cost effective at the 10,000 deck mark (they are setup to deal in high volumes).

Carta Mundi produces Magic and other high quality products.  They are largely automated and capable of doing some nice work reasonably fast, although they seem (from pre-sales conversations) to put higher priority on serving current customers as opposed to would-be customers.