All about card stock!

Cocobird55

I love the linen card stock on Deidre of the Sorrows. I have small hands, so cardstock that is very thick is hard to deal with.

My favorite card stock is from the Sakki-Sakki deck. It's perfect.

I don't like thin, floppy card stock.

Most of the card stock from the major publishers is okay.
 

AJ

the thin or thick feel sometimes has more to do with the size of the cards than the stock they are printed on.

I had one deck I trimmed down turn into a brick :)
 

Denever

Favorite for shuffling: the von Waite. So smooth and comfy, even though the card stock isn't especially thick. I love the Centennial Smith-Waite, but it's a shuffling challenge for the small-pawed among us. The pocket size is perfect, though. The Robin Wood, Diamond, and Revelations are all easy to shuffle without being too slick.

Worst for shuffling: Wild Unknown. As I complained elsewhere, I simply can't do it because the cards stick together. People have suggested ways to improve that, but I'm not entirely happy with any deck that needs special treatment to make it shuffleable.

Generally disappointing card stock: the Byzantine Tarot. The individual cards don't feel especially heavy but the whole deck is almost 1 3/8 thick. The cards don't stick together but they're very un-slick. Just not much fun to shuffle.
 

Tamipie1

caaaard stoooock

I am a stress shuffler. I love great cardstock, but you can't always just buy the deck with the good cardstock, or stay with the company with the good card stock..it's such a crapshoot. I love the shuffle of: my Bohemian Gothic mini...it's metallic and thin and shuffles beautifully for what should be a difficult amount of tiny cards to shuffle. And someone mentioned Duck Soup...I have a first ed. Zircus Magi....it feels like shuffling thick velvet..it's so delicious. I have a couple old decks, my Wirth and the good Midieval Scapini that I got already broken in...they shuffle beautifully. The Tarot of the Magical Forest...sweet little deck. Shuffles perfectly. Most disappointing shuffle...Tarot of Delphi - come ON great cards impossible to shuffle. The Lunatic, it shuffles, but the wax coating make it hard to mush back together, frustrating....
 

Tamipie1

I'm a sucker for scrumptious, succulent linen cardstock. I even bought a blank deck from Tag Jorrit's much lamented, now defunct store, just to shuffle it. (Aaaaaah!)

It's unfortunately not common. Off the top of my head, among the deck creators who offer it are the aforementioned Tag Jorrit, Seven Stars, and some one-deck wonders like the people behind the Marseille Sophistiqué. I think Freder offers it, too, but I don't own any of his creations.

who's Tag Jorrit?
 

Tamipie1

Trimming....

the thin or thick feel sometimes has more to do with the size of the cards than the stock they are printed on.

I had one deck I trimmed down turn into a brick :)


I trimmed my Ceccoli, made it harder to shuffle, trimmed my Green box large Thoth - way easier (sizewise).
 

bonebeach

Thin stock I love: whatever Freder uses on the Zirkus Magi distressed edition. It might be linen? When I first handled the deck I was kind of appalled by the thinness, but it's held up perfectly and I love, love how it feels when I riffle shuffle. Everything else I handle now feels thick and uncomfortable at first now.

Thick stock I love: first edition Wild Unknown. Not effortless like the Zirkus, but easy, breezy, beautiful, and UGH, so satisfying.

Unpopular Opinion: The Robert Place Vampire Tarot, mmm. It comes in a stuck together brick and if you bend it one way and then the other it makes wonderful bone creaky sounds and comes apart smoother than whipped butter. I didn't have to pry any cards apart, and I've never had it stick.

Honestly, though, I love any stock that can handle a riffle shuffle. The Zombie Tarot took a while for me to break in, but even then the stiffness almost seems like a thematic feature. ;)
 

imno007

People of course have varying opinions on the "perfect" card stock, since it often depends on the size of the cards, as well as the size of a person's hands and hand strength - and how much they like to shuffle their Tarot cards. Personally, I prefer thicker card stock that's built to last, but on the other hand I've never felt the need to riffle-shuffle my Tarot cards like I would a regular deck of playing cards. I prefer to take a little longer mixing them well, with mostly overhand and hindu shuffling, and maybe fanning them out once or twice, rather than stress the cards with a lot of riffle shuffling to get it done faster. Well, okay, sometimes I do a little "light" riffle shuffling, but definitely no bridging/cascade finish. So...although I prefer the thicker stock, at least I know if I get the thin stuff the cards will probably hold up for me longer than they would for a lot of people.

Lately I've been using the large Tarot of the Holy Light deck - 3.2 X 5 inches with 350 gsm card stock and a linen finish - and I'm perfectly happy with the size and quality. Maybe not the thickest Tarot card stock out there, but thick enough for me, and I wouldn't want them any thinner. And I think the slightly textured feel of the linen finish makes them easier to shuffle (however you like to shuffle) - although you might want smaller cards if you have small hands.

It isn't ever just a question of how thick the cards are, though. You have to take into consideration the quality of the paper, whether it's core-less or black-core or blue-core or whatever. I don't pretend to be very knowledgeable on all of that, although I gather black-core stock is generally considered the best. But that's not the kind of thing Tarot deck publishers usually advertise (not that I've noticed), so you'd probably have to ask them if that kind of thing is important to you.
 

Barleywine

He is a member here and has his own web page, very much into Lenormand Cards.

Hmm, that would be Lauren, so I always that it was "she." I could be wrong.