HudsonGray
I've got a friend who made up her own deck & had 200 printed. It was rather pricey, even considering the deck was all black & white. The quotes she got from printers were all over the board.
The one she settled for did it on card stock but they only had 2 grades of it & even their best was rather thin, it's sort of like shuffling paper with the deck. AND there's no plastic protective coating on the cards.
She left the back plain white (it would have increased the cost to have it double printed). They did the cutting, and were uniform in the cuts but the cards on some weren't centered completely straight. This was before good home computers (around 1989), so if you want to do the art on your computer & print off, you're only limited by the stiffness of the carstock that would feed through--plus you'd be paying for a ream of paper for each deck more or less (figure some mistakes).
Hand laminating even one side would have made the deck way too thick to work with, so the cards she ended up with had their downside. However, all 200 sold at science fiction conventions & by word of mouth. She did another printing last year (paid for by disability, according to her), but the results were the same.
If you look to get it done by a company that specializes in tarot cards or playing cards, you'll be paying more, but it'll be worth it. Also check out their minimum runs, it MIGHT be up around 1,000 or it could be something like 700 or even 500. But figure you're going to be paying at least $5 a deck when they do it. You'll recoup your costs over time, but them's the breaks.
The one she settled for did it on card stock but they only had 2 grades of it & even their best was rather thin, it's sort of like shuffling paper with the deck. AND there's no plastic protective coating on the cards.
She left the back plain white (it would have increased the cost to have it double printed). They did the cutting, and were uniform in the cuts but the cards on some weren't centered completely straight. This was before good home computers (around 1989), so if you want to do the art on your computer & print off, you're only limited by the stiffness of the carstock that would feed through--plus you'd be paying for a ream of paper for each deck more or less (figure some mistakes).
Hand laminating even one side would have made the deck way too thick to work with, so the cards she ended up with had their downside. However, all 200 sold at science fiction conventions & by word of mouth. She did another printing last year (paid for by disability, according to her), but the results were the same.
If you look to get it done by a company that specializes in tarot cards or playing cards, you'll be paying more, but it'll be worth it. Also check out their minimum runs, it MIGHT be up around 1,000 or it could be something like 700 or even 500. But figure you're going to be paying at least $5 a deck when they do it. You'll recoup your costs over time, but them's the breaks.
