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Would love to hear your thoughts.

Yes to borders, if they're thin.

Thin borders are a problem. USPC can't guarantee they will be even, so each side may be different in size.

Depends on the art i want to perform with the deck.
Personally i prefer borders for my card magic. Triumph is one of the best card magic plots and without borders...the reversed card stands out and gives away the climax.

I prefer no borders. Some of the most elegant decks in my collection are continuous backs that bleed right off the edge. Don't get me wrong though, many decks with a pronounce border can pull it off quite well...

Yes to borders - and the border color must match the edge color of the face as well. Can you tell I like to use cards for magic?

If you go borderless, you'll lose a lot of magicians. If you have thin borders, you'll have the support of cardists, but standard to fat borders won't appeal to cardists at all.

Even if you thin out the border just a little bit, it can make a big difference. The Seasons Seronda deck has just slightly thinner borders than the Primavera (though its difficult to tell just by looking at the two backs), but there is a significant difference in one-handed fans - the Seronda deck shows much more of the back design and looks much better.

Its too bad USPC doesn't have the technology to print and cut decks perfectly centered while other companies seem to be able to do it right. For example, I've not seen a single Massa deck that wasn't perfectly centered, and Massas have some of the thinnnest borders I've seen. The Pr1me decks are another example. Both of these are non-USPC.

Definitely yes to borders. I personally love thin borders the best.

No white borders.

White borders for magic trick are better !

Borderless can be interesting, but a properly done thin border adds a lot of visual impact to things like fans. If you look at many of the "black" decks that are borderless, there is usually no design elements close to the edge of the card so fans look completely dark and lifeless.

Both of my decks, Tendril and Aurum, really pushed USPCC on the border issue and Aurum ended up with really thin borders. I measured and a normal Bike deck has a white border about 5.1mm wide, Aurum has a textured one just 2.3mm wide. They seem to have cut them quite well.

There is also the edge chipping issue that you get with any darker color and borderless. That makes your cards look so trashed so quickly. Another advantage to a border.

The "traditional" chunky white border looks pretty lame, imo, but a more careful border, perhaps with some design or color can really create a great effect.

Russell wrote:No white borders.

...in standard size or bigger. I'm happy with everything else.

One thing about borderless though, part of the design being "cut off" by the edges (even small things like the diamonds on Bees) adds a risk similar to that of thin borders. Should probably be avoided to be on the safe side.

Depends on the art, really. Some look good with borders, some without.

I like thin borders, white preferably, but any color is fine as long as it matches the face background color. On problem with this, and I've seen it on decks from every company that's done borderless, is that the coloring is uneven. I don't want to fan a deck of 1800s, Vaudevilles, etc and see different shades of tan in the cards. If it can't be printed consistently and evenly, then white boarders are the only way to go.

I would add Anglos to the list of thin, even bordered decks.

Slightly off and on topic.

I'd like to see a black deck with no borders made from black card stock.
This would avoid the chipping we usually see over time, as well as allow it to be a thinner deck of cards because less ink is used.

Is this possible at USPCC?

Sharpie wrote:Slightly off and on topic.

I'd like to see a black deck with no borders made from black card stock.
This would avoid the chipping we usually see over time, as well as allow it to be a thinner deck of cards because less ink is used.

Is this possible at USPCC?

Agree 100%.

That should also help with the uneven background color I mentioned earlier.

Sharpie wrote:Slightly off and on topic.

I'd like to see a black deck with no borders made from black card stock.
This would avoid the chipping we usually see over time, as well as allow it to be a thinner deck of cards because less ink is used.

Is this possible at USPCC?

Nope. It would require a complete retooling of darn near every part of the production process. Would be awesome though.

Encarded wrote:

Sharpie wrote:Slightly off and on topic.

I'd like to see a black deck with no borders made from black card stock.
This would avoid the chipping we usually see over time, as well as allow it to be a thinner deck of cards because less ink is used.

Is this possible at USPCC?

Nope. It would require a complete retooling of darn near every part of the production process. Would be awesome though.

Can you explain this? How does printing on a different color of paper require retooling of anything except the type of inks used?

As I understand it, the majority of the inks used in printing are not 100% opaque, so printing them on black paper would alter the colors significantly. You might have to "double bump" and print the same color on top of itself again, but each pass increases wear on the paper and could create poor registration (so blurry images). Metallic inks are much more opaque, but even then not 100%.

You might actually have to print opaque white or silver behind every area you wanted to print in color. It's technically possible but USPCC is almost certainly not set up to handle it.

Now, back to the borders!

+1 to borders that match the faces.

Encarded wrote:As I understand it, the majority of the inks used in printing are not 100% opaque, so printing them on black paper would alter the colors significantly. You might have to "double bump" and print the same color on top of itself again, but each pass increases wear on the paper and could create poor registration (so blurry images). Metallic inks are much more opaque, but even then not 100%.

You might actually have to print opaque white or silver behind every area you wanted to print in color. It's technically possible but USPCC is almost certainly not set up to handle it.

Now, back to the borders!

Maybe E can try experimenting on a new run of Black tigers or Shadow masters. That way they only require white and red, which reduces complications while printing.

Thin borders . If an effort is made , thin borders is definitely possible !