GB Completed Custom Cut Card Group Buy - Jan 2025 (23 Viewers)

[JeepologyOffroad]

It looks like the printer here does two-sided printing...either they print all one side and then flip and print again, or they print both sides at the same time.
Either way, the printer lining up the crop marks for each side is not rocket science.
That said, the closer the border is to the cut line, any variation will be made more evident.

Here's a card done a few years ago from a different group buy, not sure who printed them. It looks like off center definitely happens, but this buy seems to be even further off than most.
View attachment 1627285

Yep, same company and I designed that design. File was perfectly centered

 

[SwissChip]

I've been a print designer for many years, and even moonlighted at a print house when I was young.
It looks like the printer here does two-sided printing...either they print all one side and then flip and print again, or they print both sides at the same time.
Either way, the printer lining up the crop marks for each side is not rocket science.
That said, the closer the border is to the cut line, any variation will be made more evident.

Here's a card done a few years ago from a different group buy, not sure who printed them. It looks like off center definitely happens, but this buy seems to be even further off than most.
View attachment 1627285

Yes, there is a ‚safety line‘ marge for production.
But some designs are cut off. I‘m pretty sure they all were in the ‚safe zone‘.

 

[onerand]

It looks like the printer here does two-sided printing...either they print all one side and then flip and print again, or they print both sides at the same time.
Either way, the printer lining up the crop marks for each side is not rocket science.
That said, the closer the border is to the cut line, any variation will be made more evident.

Here's a card done a few years ago from a different group buy, not sure who printed them. It looks like off center definitely happens, but this buy seems to be even further off than most.
View attachment 1627285

Yes, this happens with edge borders. Within tolerance in past. Here they went well past safe zone on one side - almost always right side although on blue moomom they shifted left.

R

 

[Colquhoun]

Yes, this happens with edge borders. Within tolerance in past. Here they went well past safe zone on one side - almost always right side although on blue moomom they shifted left.

R

I get it...its common for a printer to have a "safe zone" but it's usually not needed, as lining up both sides during printing is fairly straightforward.
My point is, they may require 1/8"...but they really shouldn't need it.

 

[TX_Golf_N_Poker]

View attachment 1627176

I don't have my Casablanca set anymore so if anyone wants to trade, hit me up.

Good to see the Casa's turned out well. I have some on the way.

 

[TX_Golf_N_Poker]

Here is my alignment issue.

This is what my designer said we submitted.

This is what I received.

The entire image seems to have been expanded. Lettering on the right runs right up to the very edge. Top is probably the closest, with only a little more of the hat cut off than expected. Left side cuts off some of the arm, and bottom cuts off too much of the guitar.

All in all, if you didn't know what I was expecting, the cards don't look too bad, except for the lettering running right up to the very edge. I will certainly still use the 40 of these that you sent me. But because they are my own customs, I really would still like to have some that were done correctly. So @Okku if you do determine that these were a printer error, I would love to have them remake at least some more. Maybe a dozen?

 

[ChipMonster]

Here is my alignment issue.

This is what my designer said we submitted.

View attachment 1627339

This is what I received.

View attachment 1627342

The entire image seems to have been expanded. Lettering on the right runs right up to the very edge. Top is probably the closest, with only a little more of the hat cut off than expected. Left side cuts off some of the arm, and bottom cuts off too much of the guitar.

All in all, if you didn't know what I was expecting, the cards don't look too bad, except for the lettering running right up to the very edge. I will certainly still use the 40 of these that you sent me. But because they are my own customs, I really would still like to have some that were done correctly. So @Okku if you do determine that these were a printer error, I would love to have them remake at least some more. Maybe a dozen?

Based on this image, this looks less like a simple trim drift and more like a production-side scaling or mapping issue. The received card appears globally “zoomed,” and then additionally affected by cut tolerance. It does not resemble a scenario where the black safe line somehow floated between the other guides. This looks like a perspective change first, followed by a shift.

Manufacturer-side possibilities include:

1. Auto-scaling applied to ensure bleed coverage
2. Poker vs bridge template or die mismatch
3. Incorrect imposition or mapping into the production template
4. Cut tolerance combined with loose QC stacking on top of scaling

Key verifications needed:

a) Confirm that the final print-ready files sent to the vendor were not scaled during production

b) Confirm that poker vs bridge files were clearly labeled and correctly mapped by the manufacturer

c) Confirm whether any designs were adjusted during Okku’s review/cleanup process and whether the files sent to the manufacturer exactly match the designer’s final submissions


At this point, the main question is if the files were altered prior to reaching the manufacturer or whether the issue occurred during production. If its production side then the onus is on them to resolve and I’m definitely hesitant to get involved with another group buy with that vendor. If it’s on pre-production and part of the 8 months of clean-up/tinkering then I don’t know what to say or advise.

 

[KevinPower5]

Oscar claimed to spend ~9 months fixing the misalignments in the cards (among many other things that turned out to be false) and have a two-ish month period around September of just approving proofs. So I'd assume at least some of these were altered, for better or worse.

However, I have extreme doubts this will be remedied on either side like some of you claim. And at best, this is just a he-said-she-said issue with a company that won't address any of this without going through Oscar himself (if at all).

 

[TheOffalo]

Mine are definitely zoomed in. I submitted the same art files that produced the right-side cut cards in a previous GB using the same vendor, and the left-side cut cards are the ones I got:

(I didn't have a black background Bellagio cut card from a previous GB handy, but it basically looked light the right-side white one, and not like the one on the left, all zoomed in.)

And my new Flamingo is definitely off-center on the bridge-size "portrait" side, with "HOTEL" almost touching the right edge, when the original are centerd with plenty of bleed/gutter:

The poker-size seemed to fare a little better centering-wise, as did the "landscape" sides, though they do seem zoomed in as well...

 

[Okku]

Quick update for everyone.

I’ve sent a detailed follow-up to the manufacturer explaining the alignment issues that a lot of you have pointed out. I included screenshots from this thread of the designs people posted (PCF, Hoser Hut, The Nuts, Spartan, etc.) so they can clearly see the border shifts and centering problems.

I asked them for:

• An explanation of what went wrong in production and QC
• What their actual alignment tolerances are
• How their print/cut process works (so I can better explain the “mass production” side of things)
• And what can be done differently in the future so this doesn’t happen again, especially with another group buy coming up

I also made it clear that this didn’t look like just a couple of bad cards, but something that likely affected a good portion of the run. Most of you already waited long enough, so I shipped everything out instead of holding it up for reprints and back-and-forth, and in a few (many) cases I refunded on my end to keep things fair.

Hoping to hear back from them by tomorrow. As soon as I get a technical answer from production and QC, I’ll post it here so everyone knows exactly what happened and what we can expect going forward.

 

[Quicksilver-75]

Just looked back through my order and the alignment is off on the CDI and the Silver Tounged Devil, but at the end of the day, they are cut cards, and not that big a deal to me. But I can understand the frustration if the design you worked hard on did not turn out perfectly, especially after all the time that elapsed.

With that being said, I did miss out on a Spartan in both bridge and poker sizes, and a Fitzgeralds in bridge, if anyone has any extras please PM me.

I did talk to Okku and he apologized that those cards were missing and already refunded me, so I'm all good there.

Fuck. Mine haven't even been mailed yet and yet I already know they're mis-aligned.

 

[DrunkleWade]

12 months waiting well spent.

• Package received without dog chew marks
• Quantity ordered was quantity received
• Front and back are the same way up
• All cards aligned perfectly to the center
• Am I over it and writing it off as a loss

I don't know who screwed the pooch on this but they certainly made sure that puppy was ruined.

You guys can expect these as "regifts" in anything I send your way. Enjoy!

Nick Pappagiorgio for the win!!

 

[brewdawg]

12 months waiting well spent.

• Package received without dog chew marks
• Quantity ordered was quantity received
• Front and back are the same way up
• All cards aligned perfectly to the center
• Am I over it and writing it off as a loss

I don't know who screwed the pooch on this but they certainly made sure that puppy was ruined.

You guys can expect these as "regifts" in anything I send your way. Enjoy!

View attachment 1627850

Nick Pappagiorgio for the win!!

How did I miss those Casino Royale. Love those

 

[Bikshu]

Mine arrived at long last! I'll echo much of what @DrunkleWade said with only minor modifications, which makes sense I guess since I ordered two of those same designs in my haul (Tangiers and Casino Royale).

• Package received without dog chew marks
• Quantity ordered was quantity received (I actually received 1 extra bridge size of my custom Pharoah's design shown below so I can't complain LOL)
• Front and back are the same way up
• All cards aligned perfectly to the center
• Am I over it and writing it off as a loss

I also just skimmed through the past like 8-9 pages of this thread, and it seems like almost every single vertically-oriented design got messed up in terms of the front-back issue and/or the shifted-alignment issue. So quite obviously this was indeed a merchant error with Plastic Printers repeatedly goofing up on almost every vertical design and then doing absolutely no quality control review whatsoever on an order worth thousands of dollars. And yet I see a whole new group buy is now in the works using that same company. What the heck?! Is there really and truly no other company out there that can make these stupid things? Hell, they basically amount to thin little slabs of plastic like credit cards or security badges that big corporations issue to employees... but these don't even require the complex electronic chips that either of those do. So I would think that there should be tons of companies around that can produce plastic cut cards in much better quality. No?

I ask because I would absolutely be willing to spend some more money to get some of my custom Pharaoh's design cards properly made. But I'm not really interested in sending any more money to these Plastic Printers jokers who obviously don't take any pride whatsoever in their work. And I'm honestly surprised that any PCF folks are willing to give these clowns more business.

 

[Benjaminotaur]

12 months waiting well spent.

• Package received without dog chew marks
• Quantity ordered was quantity received
• Front and back are the same way up
• All cards aligned perfectly to the center
• Am I over it and writing it off as a loss

I don't know who screwed the pooch on this but they certainly made sure that puppy was ruined.

You guys can expect these as "regifts" in anything I send your way. Enjoy!

View attachment 1627850

Nick Pappagiorgio for the win!!

Mine arrived at long last! I'll echo much of what @DrunkleWade said with only minor modifications, which makes sense I guess since I ordered two of those same designs in my haul (Tangiers and Casino Royale).

• Package received without dog chew marks
• Quantity ordered was quantity received (I actually received 1 extra bridge size of my custom Pharoah's design shown below so I can't complain LOL)
• Front and back are the same way up
• All cards aligned perfectly to the center
• Am I over it and writing it off as a loss

I also just skimmed through the past like 8-9 pages of this thread, and it seems like almost every single vertically-oriented design got messed up in terms of the front-back issue and/or the shifted-alignment issue. So quite obviously this was indeed a merchant error with Plastic Printers repeatedly goofing up on almost every vertical design and then doing absolutely no quality control review whatsoever on an order worth thousands of dollars. And yet I see a whole new group buy is now in the works using that same company. What the heck?! Is there really and truly no other company out there that can make these stupid things? Hell, they basically amount to thin little slabs of plastic like credit cards or security badges that big corporations issue to employees... but these don't even require the complex electronic chips that either of those do. So I would think that there should be tons of companies around that can produce plastic cut cards in much better quality. No?

I ask because I would absolutely be willing to spend some more money to get some of my custom Pharaoh's design cards properly made. But I'm not really interested in sending any more money to these Plastic Printers jokers who obviously don't take any pride whatsoever in their work. And I'm honestly surprised that any PCF folks are willing to give these clowns more business.


View attachment 1628264

In Post 1608 above I talk about head to foot vs head to head printing. The default printing for this company on vertical designed cards is always head to foot. So unless one side of a vertical card is inverted 180 degrees prior to submission you will always wind up with an inverted obverse card on production.

Whether their QC team did anything close to their job on this GB is definitely up for debate. But even a perfect job would have seen these cards as appropriate based on their printing pro

 

[DrunkleWade]

In Post 1608 above I talk about head to foot vs head to head printing. The default printing for this company on vertical designed cards is always head to foot. So unless one side of a vertical card is inverted 180 degrees prior to submission you will always wind up with an inverted obverse card on production.

Whether their QC team did anything close to their job on this GB is definitely up for debate. But even a perfect job would have seen these cards as appropriate based on their printing pro

Missed that post, thanks Ben. Also very good to know going forward....for when I crawl out of the fetal position in the shower and re-do the art files for the next GB.

 

[Himewad]

In Post 1608 above I talk about head to foot vs head to head printing. The default printing for this company on vertical designed cards is always head to foot. So unless one side of a vertical card is inverted 180 degrees prior to submission you will always wind up with an inverted obverse card on production.

Whether their QC team did anything close to their job on this GB is definitely up for debate. But even a perfect job would have seen these cards as appropriate based on their printing pro

Did this get disclosed to anyone? Head to foot printing seems like a horrible default.

 

[Pippa]

@Okku
I want an update for mine please

 

[Benjaminotaur]

Did this get disclosed to anyone? Head to foot printing seems like a horrible default.

The only reason I knew about it was because I asked on a previous buy because I wanted the cards I was designing to mirror a Monopoly deed. I’ve got a background in Graphic design and layout, so I knew what questions to ask based on issues I had on other projects for work.

For that group buy I had to explain what I wanted to know to the person running the GB, and from what I understood this was not the first buy that person ran, so I don’t think the question had ever come up, likely because it won’t affect the function or playability of a cut card.

It’s not something I would expect someone to know about or to ask if you haven’t dealt with printing much, or possibly even if you had since I still don’t 100% understand why this is the best way to print cards like this

 

[Benjaminotaur]

The only reason I knew about it was because I asked on a previous buy because I wanted the cards I was designing to mirror a Monopoly deed. I’ve got a background in Graphic design and layout, so I knew what questions to ask based on issues I had on other projects for work.

For that group buy I had to explain what I wanted to know to the person running the GB, and from what I understood this was not the first buy that person ran, so I don’t think the question had ever come up, likely because it won’t affect the function or playability of a cut card.

It’s not something I would expect someone to know about or to ask if you haven’t dealt with printing much, or possibly even if you had since I still don’t 100% understand why this is the best way to print cards like this

And to expand on this, my experience is that if you utilize double sided printing after converting each sheet to a PDF, the files will auto center on each other and create almost zero misalignment. Those can then be laminated and trimmed to size.

 

[RKC1978]

@justincarothers what ever happened to the Tangiers Cut cards with the original Tangiers order?

 

[Bikshu]

Did this get disclosed to anyone? Head to foot printing seems like a horrible default.

The only reason I knew about it was because I asked on a previous buy because I wanted the cards I was designing to mirror a Monopoly deed. I’ve got a background in Graphic design and layout, so I knew what questions to ask based on issues I had on other projects for work.

For that group buy I had to explain what I wanted to know to the person running the GB, and from what I understood this was not the first buy that person ran, so I don’t think the question had ever come up, likely because it won’t affect the function or playability of a cut card.

It’s not something I would expect someone to know about or to ask if you haven’t dealt with printing much, or possibly even if you had since I still don’t 100% understand why this is the best way to print cards like this

I'll say right off the bat the image misalignment issue is far more egregious than the image inversion issue. I think virtually all of us will agree on that.

But I have read your Post #1608 and even reviewed the merchant's website at https://www.plasticprinters.com/ and honestly they only made the situation look even worse. The thing is that a lot of us here at PCF, myself included, do have at least some graphic design experience under our belt. And yet @Himewad is absolutely correct that there was absolutely no way for us to know that head to foot printing would be their default.

Head to foot printing is absolutely not an industry standard. Just think about any double-sided paper or plastic card you've ever been handed in your life. It doesn't matter whether it's a business card, gift card, debit card, credit card, key card, name card, security badge, etc... none of them ever have a totally inverted design on the obverse. And obviously the entire publishing industry doesn't do head to foot printing otherwise we'd have to turn the book or magazine we're reading upside down every single time we flipped a page. LOL! In fact, the only major consumer product I can even think of off the top of my head that uses head to foot printing is a wall calendar (does anyone still make or buy those? ). So if a company is producing items in such a non-standard way then they really should be advising clients of that right upfront.

This is especially true for Plastic Printers since their own website implies that they specialize in printing things that are custom shaped and/or vertically oriented. And yet nowhere on their site or in their documentation could I find anything disclosing that designs might be printed head to foot or that artwork needs to be submitted for both sides (and one side's artwork needs to be inverted) in order to avoid potential problems. As confirmation of this I have attached three images which are the templates / artwork guidelines taken directly from Plastic Printers' site that were most applicable to our group buy. So clearly they are not disclosing anything about head to foot printing or possible image inversion. And please keep in mind that we were relatively easy clients for them since all of our cards were basically simple rectangles with rounded edges. But just imagine if you ordered 10,000 plastic cards that were custom shaped like a pine tree and then they showed up with the artwork inverted on opposite sides. They'd be completely unusable trash.

But again, I readily admit that the misalignment issue is a far, far bigger problem. The misalignment is what makes the cut cards look like such crap that I'm really too embarrassed to ever use them and so they turned out to be a complete waste of both time and money. And when you combine the misalignment issue with the inversion issue plus add in the fact that their documentation is subpar, to me this just screams that Plastic Printers is an "amateur hour" shop that should probably be avoided by PCF folks (and maybe reported to the BBB).

 

[Bikshu]

@justincarothers what ever happened to the Tangiers Cut cards with the original Tangiers order?

Oooooh my ears just perked up. Were those different from the Tangiers design shown below that Cratty submitted for this group buy? I did get some of those in both sizes, but I'd also be interested in seeing any other Tangiers designs that might exist. I am actually waiting for an order of Tangiers V1 faux inlay chips (plus a few Tangiers dealer buttons) to come in March, so if there seriously are any other Tangiers cut card designs floating out there then I might need to send @justincarothers yet more money. LOL

 

[SwissChip]

It will be more like this:

 

[WedgeRock]

@Okku
I want an update for mine please

I am waiting for the results of the email purportedly sent Monday night regarding the production process to find out how I get replacement bridge sized cards or a refund.

 

[justincarothers]

@justincarothers what ever happened to the Tangiers Cut cards with the original Tangiers order?

They were part of the Okku buy. Supposedly on the way to me now

 

[BaroneSanitation]

Like many a disappointing end to the year long saga after opening my envelope. Email sent for the missing designs, are people planning to get missing ones remade? Was really looking forward to the poker etiquette and hand rankings designs that @DrunkleWade whipped up for me. My club has many new players and these would have helped tremendously was hoping to be able to hand a few out to members for keeps as well

 

[Bikshu]

For what little it is worth, I received an email this morning from a Kristy Yesterman at Plastic Printers implying that image inversion is not standard - or even to be expected - on their products and which stated "You do not need to flip the artwork, we can adjust it accordingly." So apparently even their own internal sales people do not know their production methods nor their artwork requirements. It's either that or whichever of their employees actually handled our order royally messed up so badly that it's almost incomprehensible. There really aren't any other possibilities... and both of them suggest incompetence on the part of Plastic Printers employees. I therefore stand by my previous assessment: Plastic Printers appears to be an amateurish merchant that churns out garbage products with no regard for quality control or customer service. The fact that PCF folks are about to use them for another group buy is an almost comically bad decision, but "you do you" as the old saying goes. LOL

 

[Tonysquander]

Definitely seems to be an issue with the vertically aligned designs. The ones I did that were landscape look fine and are both same side up on both sides, but the vertical ones I got are reversed. The landscape ones don’t seem to suffer from the same design offset issues either and appear centered properly.

 

[Fran]

What a nightmare this GB is... I can't say anything about the alignment issues with my order because on top of that, my package seems to have been lost by UPS...
150 cut cards, 22 different designs, over €300, and nothing for a year...