Custom Cardstock Material Types
In the field of cardstock, we often use the terms weight, core, and texture to distinguish between different custom playing card cardstock materials.
Cardstock’s weight is measured in GSM (grams per square meter) and is commonly available in weights of 300gsm, 310gsm, 330gsm, and 350gsm. Generally, the lighter the paper, the more suitable it is for repetitive shuffling and splicing, while the heavier the cardstock will present higher quality.
Card texture mainly refers to the surface texture of the cardboard. These textures can be classified into two types: smooth and linen.
The smooth face is the standard cardstock surface on the market today and helps to highlight colors, shuffles, and other manipulations. The linen surface makes the cardstock lighter and softer and provides a smoother, more fluid shuffling experience. In addition, the cardstock itself also distinguishes between glossy and matte surfaces, which can make a difference in the subsequent printing.
There are the main types of cardstocks we recommend for custom cards printing:
Playing card cardstock material types
S28 Promotional blue core
- Weight: 280gsm
- Core: Blue core
- Texture: Smooth
S30 Standard smooth blue core
- Weight: 300gsm
- Core: Blue core
- Texture: Smooth
Blue core paper is the most standard choice of cardstock on the market. It has the advantage over other card stocks of being cost effective, having good memory and flexibility, and the ability to limit the amount of light passing through the card to some extent.
Normally, blue core cardstock is mainly used for lower budgets and lower volume products, or for customers targeting game design, advertising promotions, wedding giveaways, etc.
Choosing the standard blue core card stock allows you to add more cards per deck without raising the price. In addition, it has no minimum order quantity.
S30 Smooth black core
- Weight: 300gsm
- Core: Black core
- Texture: Smooth
S31 Smooth black core
- Weight: 310gsm
- Core: Black core
- Texture: Smooth
S33 Superior smooth black core
- Weight: 330gsm
- Core: Black core
- Texture: Smooth
They use a black core to enhance the opacity of the card while maintaining excellent smoothness and increasing the stiffness and texture of the cardstock by adding weight.
It is suitable for scenarios where it is over-handled for use or where cheating issues are emphasized, such as casino, magic, high-end gifts, high-end games, etc.
L30 Linen air black core [min.250]
- Weight: 300gsm
- Core: Black core
- Texture: Linen air
L31 Linen air black core [min.250]
- Weight: 310gsm
- Core: Black core
- Texture: Linen air
L33 Linen air black core [min.1000]
- Weight: 330gsm
- Core: Black core
- Texture: Linen air
They are perfect for top-notch products. They have an ultra-high standard of visual contrast for clean, detailed, and lustrous card graphics. Also, they maintain a high level of stiffness, smoothness, and confidentiality, which greatly prevents card bending, wear and tear, and translucency, and enables excellent handling.
They are very popular options for high-end gift playing cards, casino playing cards, Cardistry playing cards, tarot cards, and oracle cards printing.
A30 Standard art paper
- Weight: 300gsm
- Core: white-core, or coreless
- Texture: Smooth
A35 Superior art paper
- Weight: 350gsm
- Core: white-core, or coreless
- Texture: Smooth
A40 Thick art paper
- Weight: 400gsm
- Core: white-core, or coreless
- Texture: Smooth
It is made of ordinary white cardstock coated with a layer of white chemical material. So it has a very smooth surface, high whiteness, and very good ink absorption and inking performance.
It is suitable for use with game cards, tarot cards, oracle cards, study cards, etc. that emphasize a steady handedness, and is not suitable for casino cards.
P10 Plastic white [min.500]
- Color: White
- Thickness: 0.3mm/0.32mm/0.35mm
- Texture: Smooth/Fine sand/Coarse sand
P10 Plastic black [min.500]
- Color: Black
- Thickness: 0.3mm
- Texture: Smooth/Fine sand/Coarse sand
We offer plastic card stock in different surfaces and colors, such as smooth, fine sand, coarse sand, or white and black. They are all made of 100% high quality PVC (polyvinyl chloride) with no irritating odor for smelling and no harm to our human body.
This type of cardstock can stand up to the test of harsh environments, have excellent water resistance and flexibility, and maintain excellent shape, color and mobility even after long exposure, wetting, violent shuffling & cutting, and other different operations.
What’s more, the plastic cardstock can be said to be the first choice of top poker players and game card players, to create an absolutely silky smooth operating experience. The min. of this cardstock are 500 decks.
For more cardstock options (such as recyclable and eco-friendly paper), please contact us.
Playing cards box material types
White cardboard cardstock
- Weight: 250/275/300/400gsm
- Color: White
- Texture: Smooth/ Linen
- Fit: Tuck box/ Window tuck box
Smooth or Linen mainly refers to the textures of the box surface. Smooth, which means no texture, is a standard finish and is generally chosen by customers who do not have particularly strict requirements. Linen, on the other hand, is more popular in the field of game card boxes, tarot card boxes, etc. Because it makes the packaging look more professional and performs better in terms of non-fading, anti-scratch, and anti-wear.
Combined paper
- Weight: 800/1200/1500gsm grey cardboard + 128/157gsm coated art paper
- Texture: Smooth/Linen air
- Fit: Lid & bottom box/ Drawer box/ Magnetic box
For boxes with high hardness requirements, we use extra thick grey cardboard as the inner layer to achieve strong pressure-bearing capacity and protect the cards from any damage. In order to meet the needs of color printing and special processing, we use coated art paper to cover the grey cardboard to obtain an excellent and beautiful printing effect. Again, you can choose smooth or linen texture effects.
Hard Plastic material
- Raw materials: POF/BOPP
- Thickness: 0.016~0.025mm
- Fit: shrink wrapping, cello wrapping, etc.
We use high-quality plastic material, which is non-toxic and odorless and can meet your requirements to different degrees from stability to gloss and transparency. What’s more, you can add thumb cuts or hinges to open the box more easily.
Recommended for trading cards, game cards, baseball cards, basketball cards, volleyball cards, and other options.
SPTE Tinplate
- Raw material: low carbon thin steel plate + tin plating
- Thickness: 0.23~0.28mm
- Fit: Tin lid &bottom box, tin window box, tin hinged box, etc.
PTE is a cold-rolled, thin, low-carbon steel sheet coated on both sides with commercially pure tin. Tin primarily acts as a protection against corrosion and rusting, while steel is responsible for strength and formability. Their combination makes SPTE corrosion-resistant, non-toxic, strong, and ductile.
Tin boxes are popular among customers of custom game cards, custom flashcards, custom trading cards, custom Pokemon cards, and so on.
Soft plastic material
- Raw materials: POF/BOPP
- Thickness: 0.016~0.025mm
- Fit: shrink wrapping, cello wrapping, etc.
BOPP (Biaxially Orientated Polypropylene film) is a thin and flexible film. It can be enhanced with special sealing layers and various surface treatments to enhance the attractiveness of the product.
POF (Polyolefin Shrink film) is a strong, biaxially oriented and multi-layer film, mainly used for durable and tough packing with excellent optics, sealing and shrinking. Both materials are non-toxic, odorless, and highly transparent.
Velvet (single-sided)
- Raw material: Cotton plain velvet/ synthetic velvet
- Thickness: 130~150g/piece
- Fit: Tarot velvet bag, oracle velvet bag, etc.
Our velvet bags mainly use single-sided cotton flat velvet or single-sided synthetic velvet. They both belong to the higher end of the fabric, which is covered with towering piles and is very hard-wearing and thick.
The differences between them are that flat velvet has a duller color and a harder and drier feel, while synthetic velvet has a more vibrant color and a soft and smooth feel. You can choose according to your preference.
Booklet paper material types
C2S art paper
- Weight: 128gsm/ 157gsm/ 300gsm
- Color: White
- Texture: Smooth
- Fit: Folding booklet/ Cover of binding booklet
The full name of C2S has coated two sides, which means that both sides of the art paper are covered with a coating to achieve a smoother and more delicate printing effect. This material is widely used in highly demanded and colorful folding booklets or the front and back covers of binding booklets.
Matte art paper
- Weight: 100gsm
- Color: White
- Texture: Smooth
- Fit: Folding booklet/ Inner pages of the binding booklet
The brightness of the matt art paper is lower, and the texture of the printing is more delicate and can be felt in the hand. Usually, matt paper will be thinner and whiter than coated art paper and is less prone to distortion. If there are a lot of texts, it is recommended to use matte art paper.
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We aspire to be the best card company in the world, and we never sacrifice quality for any custom order.
Let us make your custom playing card or tarot cards deck or tabletop game card designs come to life. You can customize just about anything.
If you’re ready to learn more, then deal us in and we’ll be more than happy to help you with your custom order.
