Trading Cards

[AKcardz]

I apologize if this is not the appropriate place for this thread. My question is, what equipment is used to produce modern baseball cards from start to finish? I have spent the last month researching this and have come up with nothing. None of the card companies have replied and I guess I can understand why. The reason I ask is I'd like to produce custom trading cards for customers in Alaska. I would be printing high quality images on 25-75 pt. card stock. I would also want to create die cut cards. Any ideas on what I need?

 

[WiseGuy]

A long time ago at one of the companies I worked for, we did custom photo baseball cards. This was back in 1997. We used first generation Indigo to print these and had a die cutter that did X-up of cards on each sheet. We also had some customer software that we used at the time to put on the stats and drop the picture into the card and a simple imposition software.

Today, there are sooo many ways to produce these all depending on how many you need to produce on a regular basis. You could go small or go Big with something like MGI who has most of what you'd need. Again, it's all about what you want to spend. Might be easier to just outsource to someone that already does this type of product. I'm sure there are many companies you could find on-line that would offer trade prices.

Good Luck!
Michael

 

[AKcardz]

Wow, that was fast. Thanks. Ok, let's say I want to go small, 50 to 100 cards per player on a highschool baseball team. My main challenges are finding a printer that will print onto 18 pt cardstock and then finding a way to cleanly cut them. I also want to do jersey swatch cards but I think I've found a way to do that using two pieces of thinner stock and a craft cutting machine. You think an Indigo digital press would be what I'm after? Those are very expensive aren't they? And how about cutting, who would have that tool?

 

[oxburger]

When you say modern baseball cards, I immediately think high-gloss, gold foil, hologram type cards. Are you doing any of these effects as well?

 

[Paul Cavanaugh]

Years ago I used to print baseball type cards as a marketing tool for salespeople. They had the product with all of its stats on the back of the card with a picture of the machine being sold on the front. Sometimes the card would have a salespersons photo on the front with his contact information on the back made to look like the stats found on a baseball card. I printed these on all types of card stocks depending on the quality the customer wanted from KromeKote to regular card stock like the old Topps cards were printed on.

The machine I did this on was a Heidelberg MOFPH-L (5 color high pile with aqueous coater). We used an old Polar 82 EL cutter to cut them to size. The cards came out just like the ones you would get in a pack of gum at the time.

Today, as mentioned above they are done in so many different ways. With the new equipment available that can print with many different units and multiple types of coatings in one pass, not too mention the post press operation available to add holograms and such it is nearly impossible to duplicate the cards with a low budget.

At the very minimum you could do fine with a 5 color press with coater and a basic cutter.

 

[Point918]

You could try these guys.

Create your Personalized Playing Cards, Custom Playing Cards, & Personalized Photo Playing Cards in a variety of styles

Playing cards, not trading but very similar.
An old supplier that always treated us right.

Don

 

[AKcardz]

Well, that would be nice but it looks like I would need some specialized equipment

 

[WiseGuy]

I did a search for "custom trading cards" and came back with several hits. Again, instead of looking at buying expensive equipment, I'd order up a small sample from some of these guys to see their quality and then look at outsourcing.

customsportsproducts.com
mytradingcards.com
Order Custom Sports Cards
Custom Trading Cards | Schedule cards

I hope this helps!

 

[jonprintz]

Just a few years ago we were printing trading cards for one of the big name sports company's. That process they used was 4/cp conventional inks, foil stamping, and then UV coating. They supplied the particular stock and did the guillotine cutting to final size. Die cutting to custom shapes would have been no problem but then custom packaging would need to be designed.

Those were long runs on 40" sheets. For the short runs you mentioned a newish Indigo, an offline UV coater, and a guillotine cutter could be used to produce a good product for you.

It would likely be more cost effective to outsource to a print shop that already has that type of equipment.

 

[amydelx2]

Hey buddy, you shouldnt have to apologize for this. When I opened this forum to search for new threads i found your thread & I liked it. Nice discussion here on trading cards. And this is the appropriate place for this thread. I had a little knowledge about this trainig cards but after reading all the discussion I got too much knowledge. Keep writing such a nice threads. Thanks.