It is time to submit... how to make professional cards.

I'm more of an illustrator and self-publish my own works, but as they deal with things in card-format, hopefully these will help:

The (playing) card stock mentioned is also called black-core paper. I've been trying to search online if its sold in small batches, but no luck with that. So far it seems there are online sellers from India and China, but I they didn't post prices. The $700 price seems reasonable, at least for a big-scale project. I remember reading off the website of a European card manufacturer - I think it was AG Mueller - that the stock they use was double-ply *something* Can't really recall much of it. I'll be going to China probably within the next few weeks on a totally unrelated endeavor, but hopefully I can find those card manufacturers with backdoor-type retailing.

I guess the best alternative I can think of at the moment's 300 gsm cardstock and then lamination. The problem is that unless the cardstock is pretty rigid, there's the risk of the lamination warping.

Anyone know of a good water-based type of playing card varnish? The main problem I see in using varnish is how to apply it evenly (unless you have those expensive sheet card-varnishing machines). Spraying has a risk of giving it a rough, sandy texture. The solution I've thought of which might work for small-scale projects such as making sample cards, would be to use a silk screen-type of application and squeegee the varnish through the mesh onto the surface of the cards. This would result in a tolerably even surface. Here's where the water-based part comes in: easy cleaning.

Hope that didn't make things more confusing.

It seems that all this talk about adhesive and multi-ply paper and laminating is too much for a prototype.

When I first started working on my game 5 years ago, I printed simple B&W designs onto cardstock on my old HP 692, and then put address labels on the back of the cards to reduce the transparency, but it made for thick decks and ugly cards, which turned off game testers right away. I shelved the project.

I hauled it all out a few weeks ago and have been pouring new effort into it. For card design I found and used the free Magic Set Editor (even though my game doesn't resemble Magic at all):

http://magicseteditor.sourceforge.net/

It gives you a wide range of adjustable templates with the ability to add in your own templates if you are so inclined. I re-designed my cards using it, and came up with a back design which was mostly black so as to eliminate transparency.

There are two decks in my game, and while I created them both using the Magic Set Editor (MSE), I printed the first deck on my Lexmark X4580 for about $20 worth of ink. The result looked OK but the card finish is rough and they don't shuffle well.

So for the second deck, I set the MSE print output as a PDF file which I then sent to Staples to laser-print double-sided on 110 lb cardstock. Getting them to print it properly was a challenge (worthy of another post), but it only cost me less than $7 CAD, paper included. The laser printing itself added a gloss to both sides which eliminated the need for lamination and makes shuffling feel natural.

With both decks there were minor issues lining up the front and back (off by as much as 3 mm) but this could be resolved by tweaking the output file or the paper tray position. I used a papercutter and the corner rounder from my wife's Creative Memories scrapbooking supplies to cut them out. Because of the manual labour involved, they're not all exactly the same size. But I'm not hugely concerned about that at this stage in the game development, as I have decent-looking, playable decks.

was alignment of the front to back an issue or was the back a general pattern that could be cut any ol' way?

I recommend to use 'Nandeck'. http://www.nand.it/nandeck/

This is how I prototype my card games as well, I print out the sheet of paper then I slip it in a Magic/WoW TCG card with a sleeve (Deck protector), the slip of paper wont fall out and it has the hardiness of a playing card.

Ultra Pro is generally what I use, I'm sure you can find these at a local comic store or a hobby shop. If your don't own any TCG/CCG cards, some comic stores sell singles for a few cents, just buy a bunch to be the backbone of your cards.

Here is a link to their website:
http://www.ultrapro.com/page.php?pname=gaming/deck_protectors&PHPSESSID=...

A lot of the resources mentioned are standard playing card sizes, except using blank stock and printing / cutting yourself. Are there any resources for square cards (like Settlers)? Or larger cards (like Joan of Arc,or perhaps some Tarot cards)?

Personally - I dislike the tiny cards used in some games, like St. Petersburg or Ticket to Ride -- I like beefy, oversized cards best. I know costs go up, but as a player I enjoy games that use larger cards, particularly when the cards play a large role in the gameplay. The drawbacks to larger cards may be the lack of sleeve options - but I can live with that if the cards are a good quality.