Playing Cards Made Not From Paper

[KPopFever605]

This idea came into my mind when I backed the Hardwood Playing Cards from Biblot Games.

The idea grew when, finally, my sampler pack game from them and also when I saw another Kickstarter project marketing playing cards created from carbon fiber.

What are your opinions on this new style of creating playing cards from materials other than paper and plastic? This new perspective offers many benefits, but also some disadvantages. Personally, I love how artists are venturing out of the norm to test the limits of card creation, and am highly excited to see what others can create next.

With that, where do you think creators will take this concept? What Ideas to you want to be possibly created during your lifetime?

[Don Boyer]

This idea came into my mind when I backed the Hardwood Playing Cards from Biblot Games.

The idea grew when, finally, my sampler pack game from them and also when I saw another Kickstarter project marketing playing cards created from carbon fiber.

What are your opinions on this new style of creating playing cards from materials other than paper and plastic? This new perspective offers many benefits, but also some disadvantages. Personally, I love how artists are venturing out of the norm to test the limits of card creation, and am highly excited to see what others can create next.

With that, where do you think creators will take this concept? What Ideas to you want to be possibly created during your lifetime?

There's a reason why so many decks are made of paper - it's cheap and it works well.  Plastic as an alternative has been around for many years, but only in the age of Texas Hold 'Em poker becoming a national craze has plastic come to the forefront - casinos also realized it's tougher to mess with plastic cards, so most casinos have switched games where the player handles the cards to plastic decks.

Carbon fiber?  Pretty, durable, but expensive.  Not practical.

Wood?  It has its vulnerabilities and it's hard to shuffle.

We've seen metal as well.  Heavy, hard to bend, prone to scratching.

The majority of serious research from paper companies would be in finding alternative paper sources (such as hemp) and finding ways to supplement wood fibers with other materials, such as plastic.  It's not even for the goal of making paper more durable.  It's recognition of the fact that clean, new-wood paper is practically non-existent - it's gaining more and more recycled content, which results in shorter fibers and lower quality.  The paper is, as a matter of course, dropping in quality - they're trying to make paper that's closer to the quality of the papers that were once available.  They're also looking into using cloth fibers such as cotton and linen - US currency is made of a paper consisting of 75% linen, 25% cotton - but the cost there is still higher than wood-pulp papers.

[Morpheus]

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Paper has suited people fine for a long time, no need for that to change.

[bhong]

There's also a type of paper made from calcium carbonate, aka limestone. It'd be curious to see what kind of deck of cards that'd make though I'm not sure of the cost of getting a giant roll of that to test out. I know the paper itself can be cold to the touch if left out for awhile and it's got a slick feel to it without any coating on it.

[KPopFever605]

I know why playing cards are created from paper, and I'm not saying that we need to change our entire method to something entirely different. I just wanted to know your opinions on this new field that appears to be arising among card creators.

[Don Boyer]

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Paper has suited people fine for a long time, no need for that to change.

Even if the quality of the paper itself is getting lower over time?  There's less and less original wood pulp fibers in each roll and sheet as more and more recycled content becomes the norm.

I know why playing cards are created from paper, and I'm not saying that we need to change our entire method to something entirely different. I just wanted to know your opinions on this new field that appears to be arising among card creators.

The short answer: they're novelties.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, but don't expect to see a lot of these decks showing up on the shelves of Walgreen's or WalMart.  Novelties have a way of dying out when the novelty wears off.