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Game Board Boxes

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JPOG
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Joined: 12/31/1969

Hello all, any thoughts are appreciated. I have looked through the other "box-related" threads here and found some useful info, but not quite what I am looking for.

I have a mostly finished dice game that I am looking to box, to find out my total likely cost.

The game itself includes an 8 page booklet made out of standard 8.5" x 11" size paper which I fold in half and staple together (so the booklet dimensions are 5.5" x 8.5"), maybe a few charts or playmats about the same dimensions and about a dozen dice.

I have ordered the Protoparts 10.25" two-piece box, which is close to what I want, though obviously my dimensions are closer to 9" x 6" by 3/4" - anyone know of any companies that have boxes around that size? I have three catalogs from various boxing, gift and packaging companies but none of them have a box size approaching what I want and I haven't found any on the internet either. Would some form of high-quality envelope, like a nicer version of the manilla envelope, maybe a glossy one, be permissable as "boxing" for a dice game?

Also, how would I myself put artwork on the boxes, or would I do stickers and such until I was able to see if it was worth getting boxes produced and wrapped for me? I'm "self-publishing' if you want to call it that, just to see what kind of interest there is, so I'm not looking at much investment unless I actually start making more than the occasional sale.

PS: Off-topic, about the Protoparts wooden cubes - it says they are great for coloring - what does that mean? I'm wanting dice or cubes of various colors so players may use them as counters to keep track of various game values - is this what is meant, and what do you color them with, and then do you get an ink stamp to put numbers on them, or write on them or get stickers or what?

jkopena
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Game Board Boxes

jpog, some quick thoughts:

A couple people here have mentioned using plastic boxes from Placon. Unfortunately, they don't have one that fits your dimensions well, and the larger ones (8.5x11) are fairly flimsy (though the smaller ones are nice).

I think custom boxes are expensive, no matter what. Full color ones certainly are, at best a buck or two for a few thousand. If anyone has leads on people who'll do 1 or 2 color box printing for less, I'd be interested as well.

Envelope printers seems hard to find, I think small-time printers represent an industrial segment that's only sort of found its way online so far. I could dig out my notes on a few I have found if you're interested and there's probably some local to you if you call around. Personally, I think for those dimensions (bigger gets too flimsy) and components, an envelope can work out well. I have a bunch of envelope printed games I've bought, and in many ways they're nicer than mailers with stickers pasted on. If memory serves, I got a quote at one point for a two-color, large envelope at something like 50 cents each for 500.

JPOG
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Game Board Boxes

Envelope printers hmm. So to actually send the game in an envelope that has been custom printed.... hmmmmmmm, thanks for the option, I might consider that, and yes if you have time/inclination, a bit of info on your findings would be appreciated, thanks much.

jkopena
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Game Board Boxes

jpog,

I think you would actually want to ship in a bubble envelope or a corrugated cardboard mailer (folding or box). My thought was that yes, it'd be a little redundant to print an envelope and put it inside a mailing box. However:

a. You can bury the cost for the mailer into S&H charges, which then doesn't affect the price in selling directly (e.g. cons) or to retailers.
b. I feel that a printed envelope looks nicer than a box with a sticker on it, but that's just my opinion.
c. The shipping box is going to get trashed, so you really need to have 2 containers.

Anyway, I found two promising leads when I was looking into this a while ago. One was Action Envelope, whom I believe said they could do (or had in their catalog) a 1 color 9x12 for $359.95/1000. Another was Argo Envelope, which quoted me a 2 color (black & 1 other), 11.5x14.5 for $205/500. Obviously you'll want different sizes & such and that'll affect cost, but I thought those numbers looked pretty promising.

Long story short, printed envelopes are something my little group's considering for some of our efforts. If you wanted to check out an example, lots of the CheapAss games are packaged like this. However, I think you could do one slightly nicer for no more cost. I have a Hamlet game made by some small company that apparently went under. It's in a nice, black-printed light-colored manila folder and looks very classy.

JPOG
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Game Board Boxes

Hey all, I wanted to share this site I just found that makes all sizes of boxes. I sent off for a quote for a 9x6 box. Check it out, it seems to be fairly in line with what I was looking for and they even do single box orders!

http://www.cactuscontainers.com/

And another:

http://www.800giftbox.com/index.cfm/hurl/SectionID=80/GroupID=3/gPath=Boxes

jkopena
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Game Board Boxes

I'd be curious to hear what sort of results you get, but FYI that they (Cactus) seem to come in around a couple bucks for even relatively large runs (by their standards).

Anonymous
Game Board Boxes

would like to see price quotes and any success on finding a supplier as I am looking too and having no luck findong any.

Will keep checking here though

Thanks

Mike

TrollBasher
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Game Board Boxes

Hmm, anyone tried card boxes. It's what I use. You know, the boxes that come with those fancy birthday cards. They come in all shapes and sizes and are fairly cheap. I then just print an A4 label and cut to size.

Good for prototype anyway. Hope that helps.

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