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Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Plastic Borders

Posted by Ricky Chua On 9:53 AM 14 comments
A new contender for the World's Tallest building?

Let me put it right in the open. Laminated cards stack up REALLY high. The picture below shows how thick the complete set of playing cards are after lamination.

Mind you, this is inclusive of the Battle Expansion 军争包 but without all the Unofficial playing cards.


Despite the height of this tower of cards that puts the Big Mac to shame, I am drooling to replace all my cards with the laminated version! Why? Read on!


Remember the survey I put up for you to voice your concerns about laminated cards? One of the biggest concerns from responders was the uniformity of the laminated cards. Take a close look at the image above. Zoom in if you need to. See how all the edges line up nicely?

Here's a top-down view of the same stack of cards. Look at how perfect the cut is. It looks as if there was only 1 card doesn't it?


The other big concern was fitting the laminated cards into the box. The picture below shows the Collectors edition box, where all the cards (playing cards, role cards, character cards, everything!) fit just nice when slotted like so. The cover of the box seals the content without crushing it. Sweet huh??


One word of caution here. The game manual and the sheet of cardboard tokens that come with this Collector's edition will not fit into the box anymore. But this can be easily overcome. Break out all the cardboard tokens and drop them into the space seen in the upper right of the picture. Leave the manual out (nobody that I know uses it anyway), and PRESTO! you got everything you need in this beautiful box.


What if you don't have the Collector's Edition? 


The laminated cards are not going to sit nicely in the original box, that's for sure! But I have the solution to that!

Somewhere over the South China Sea right now is my next shipment of SGS items. In that shipment, I have brought in a new product! Check it out. (not actual pictures)

Smaller in length and width, but taller than the original boxes.
Laminated cards fit easily.

I have yet to see this in the flesh, but once it arrives I'll take actual product photos for you. Apparently the length of this box is large enough to accommodate ALL the SGS cards available so far, including all unofficial cards. That's quite a claim! I'll verify that and post up pictures. Look out for it!


Now let me talk about the BIGGEST concern about laminated cards...


"I already have the entire deck! I'm not gonna buy another duplicate set just because it's laminated!!"


Well here's how i'll help you out. I'm putting in place a "trade-in" service. I will take in your set of SGS (subject to card condition) and offset the price for a new laminated set! 


That way, you will get your laminated version at a great price and not have to fret over a redundant extra set.


Sad to say, the "trade-in" service will probably only be applicable to Singaporean buyers, since it does not make economical sense for overseas customers to ship me their SGS set!


Look out for that too! I shall have it put together very soon.


So there you have it folks. I know that not everyone likes laminated cards, so you may not too excited about them. But if you DO fancy a set of SGS laminated, the SGS BlogShop will be able to help you out.


Till my next update once the shipment arrives, have fun and 杀!

14 comments:

  1. My SGS deck bought online is well laminated but my woods expansion is not. Where can I get good quality laminating for these cards? Queensway?

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  2. Hope I'm not splashing cold water here, but I just recently shipped 3 complete laminated sets over from China, which I find the laminated quality isn't that fantastic.

    A few of the cards have slight particles and bubbles inside, and a few others slightly warped. I suppose this is to be expected of laminating a few hundred cards, some are bound to be less than desirable.

    But then again, I'm extremely picky so I'm sure some of you out there would probably go "huh...? got problem meh? where? where...?"

    My standard of quality is pretty high, so I think I'm better off laminating the cards myself. Afterall, I do have a A4 laminator at home! That's how I created a DIY set of base game cards in english! LOL

    It's extremely tedious, but the reward is you get the laminating standard that you are happy with.

    (Side Note: For those who wanna do this, take note that though some pouches are cheap, they aren't really great. I've seen some cheapo ones with no-so-good seams on the pouches. The end effect is that your cards will come out slightly warped. The problem liese with the pouches used, rather than the laminator)

    Happy laminating! ^_^

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  3. McSotong: You are a game connoisseur! Your standards of course super high lah! Hey perhaps you can help the other readers here with laminating only a select number of cards?

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  4. Why not just buy some good quality card sleeves designed for other games such as Magic the Gathering and etc. They fit San Guo Sha's card perfectly (since the card sizes are the same)and offers same protection if not better.

    People use the card sleeve for deck that worth over 10000 dollars (USD). Also you may unsleeve them anytime you want.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I really prefer Anonymous's method. The card sleeves work well and you can always add in your own translations by printing them out and putting them into the sleeves.

    Also when you add more expansions or unofficial cards later the sleeves ensure that everything will be uniform.

    I also have a laminated set. I find the card sleeves are much easier to shuffle.

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  6. I'm currently still waiting for my laminated set so I have no idea how well it shuffles.
    But since its not trading cards, I prefer lamination over card sleeve. Partly because its water proof and protects the cards better from bending.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Strictly speaking, I agree that card sleeves are easier to shuffle, because they are thinner and softer. Shuffling laminated cards can be quite a challenge for people with small palms, but they feel better to hold, cos' they are stiffer.

    And when it comes to my private card collections, no, I absolutely would not want to laminate the cards and would prefer sleeves. I only laminate "playing" sets, not collection sets. (Laminate = resale value 0)

    Anyway, it's up to individual preferences. I dun realy like card sleeves for playing purposes cos' their quality degrade very rapidly over time and cards tends to fall out during shuffling. I tored a few sleeves while speed shuffling, cos some cards are accidentally shooved into a sleeve, splitting the seams.

    When it comes to DIY cards, lamination is definitely the way to go; putting them into sleeves dun seem pro enough work for me (=P)
    If you dun like the extra thickness, you may buy the thinner ones.

    And I dun mind doing some minor laminating works for others, but dun expect me to be by the machine for hours laminating 1000 cards. I'll decide on a case by case basis. =P

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  8. McSotong: Hahaha the imagery of you laminating 1000 cards by the machine made me laugh out! Definitely can't imagine you spending hours doing that!

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  9. Anyway I doubt anyone be seeking much lamination here in SG, cost price is way too high, no one is gonna pay for that...

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  10. but a decent card sleeve for 200 cards might cost more than 15sgd here in Malaysia =(

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  11. It only costs $2 per pack of 100 decent card sleeves, and less for the penny sleeves.

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  12. i bought mine here for around rm25 per pack (100pcs) =( quality is good though.

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  13. The laminated cards aren't going to sit very well in the actual box

    ReplyDelete
  14. mcsotong! where can i purchase the laminated deck of SGS???? please reply :D

    ReplyDelete

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