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Standard Playing Card Decks?

3 replies [Last post]
Tue, 02/17/2004 - 17:02
nosissies
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Joined: 07/26/2008

Hey folks,
Here's my predicament, my game requires two decks of standard cards along with a bunch of other bits, some of those other bits(not to mention packaging) are the real budget-busters for micro-scale(shooting for ~200-250 units) production so I want to keep the cards as small a portion of the price as possible without sacrificing too much on quality.

I've dug through a ton of past posts here and I can't seem to find the answer to my question. I've spent a ton of time on Google, still not finding quite what I'm looking for. So, forgive me if I seem terribly naive when I ask this question... I trust someone more informed than I can answer this quickly...

What would one expect to pay for ~500 standard poker decks of "reasonable" quality?

Yes, I realize that this totally depends on the quality of the card which is defined in many variables, but I'm looking for a ballpark number and I would love it if you could recommend specific companies.

Thanks in advance!
Tom

ps. I promise a preview "real soon now" :-)

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Tue, 02/17/2004 - 19:48
#1
Oracle
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Joined: 06/22/2010
Standard Playing Card Decks?

Dollar stores near me sell decks of cards 2 for $1 CDN. If you can find who their supplier is, you can probably get it for half that . So for 500 decks, you'd be looking at $250 CDN (about $150 US) as a retail price; in that quantity, the store would probably give you a discount.

The quality isn't very good though, in HS, I used to go through a deck a week. Then I bought a deck of Bicycle cards and it lasted for years.

At Costco they sell a 12 pack of Bicycle cards for $20 CDN.

Jason

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Wed, 02/18/2004 - 09:16
#2
prophx
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Joined: 08/13/2008
Standard Playing Card Decks?

Depending on what your bits need to be, I've found that there are many various types and sizes of beads that you can buy cheaply. Walmart tends to have better prices than local hobby stores. For one of my games I was originally using poker chips as markers, but after using beads, the game looks great, plays easier, and a dollar cheaper to make.

Regarding cards, I use the dollar store variety, but instead of the normal sized cards I use the travel size. It adds a little variation and helps keep the packaging a little smaller.

I'm not sure if you saw my post describing making boxes out of cardstock. This is working very well for smaller games. I have a jpg box template image that I insert into Word and then design all of the graphics and text on top of. It takes under 2 minutes to fold the box and looks much better than paper glued onto a box. The cost for these boxes is about 5 cents depending on how much ink you use. Producing games seems to be more challenging than designing the game, but sure is fun.

rob
http://www.geocities.com/crosstowngames/

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Wed, 02/18/2004 - 11:51
#3
nosissies
Offline
Joined: 07/26/2008
Sneak Peek Included ....

Here's what you all really want to see:
http://www.superpowernosissies.com/sneakpeek.jpg
Maybe that's just a tease, but it should help you make sense of all the bits I need.

Aside from the two standard decks of cards, my other components include (at my volumes) about a dollar's worth of posts and rings from plastics for games ( http://www.p4g.co.uk ). and 55 tiles, the prototype was made from aspen wood stock from home depot and clear inkjet labels from ( http://www.rippedsheets.com/ ) and a bunch of sweat.

Along with those it will also include a fabric (light canvas?) sheet for the playing surface, silkscreened in one or two colors (the second color would just be a bonus if possible). And, if it at all possible, I'd like to include a bag for storing and randomly drawing tiles.

My wife's cousin is looking into printing options for me in the Philippines, which hopefully will allow me to do a decent 4 color set-up box, instruction sheet, and the fabric items even at this small volume. Of course, the bag mentioned above would be a fine fallback if a box is prohibitive. There is also a possibility that they could do the tiles as well.

The real big expense (in terms of time or money) of course is the tiles (at least in anything but cardboard) I'd love to have wood, but I doubt that's realistic. So I'm looking for options, I just found this link this morning: http://www.dominoes.com/Cards_main.asp I'll have to see if they have any bulk prices, and if the size will work for me.

Any more tips, pointers or psychoanalyses would be graciously received.

peace,
Tom

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