Pokemon Cards

How Pokemon Cards are Made

Pokemon cards in the United States are made by a company in North Carolina called Millenium Print. In 2022, they released/leaked and then took down a video detailing their entire process.

Proofs are made by printing onto a single layer of transparent plastic, which is then laminated to a holographic aluminum backed sheet.

The basic layout of holographic cards are a base paper (likely aluminum coated on the front) with a clear holographic diffraction grating foil laminated on top. 

To print a holographic card, the holographic foil paper is fed through the printers, first with a "white plate" printing an opaque white ink onto the card to mask certain non-holographic parts of the card, and then with the successive CMYK color printing plates directly on top of this layer. 

To print a normal card, they do the same, but with a blank white sheet instead of the holographic foil paper made earlier.

Notes:

• Unless it was omitted, I don't think there's any clear top coat or protective laminate. The touch surfaces are all directly printed ink. (I'm 50/50 on this hypothesis)

1. Proof made in office.

2. Holographic foil paper, made in factory.

3. Example white plate print onto holographic backing. Notice the opaque cutouts masking the holographic foil layer.

4. Same print, but with the color printed on top of the white layer.

Diffraction Gratings - What is a Hologram?

A diffraction grating is a microscopic groove structure that reflects light in different ways, creating a holographic effect. Because this is a physical surface property creating this optical effect, you can use a diffraction grating master to imprint the diffraction grating pattern onto any material.

This is the process used to make holographic chocolate, and is also the principle behind the holographic build plates used in 3D printing.

See this video from Applied Science for a great overview.

DIY Methods

DIY trading cards are done in the following way.

1. A holographic card of low rarity and desired diffraction pattern is sacrificed by scrubbing off the layer of ink on the front face with acetone.

2. A color printer is used to print color images onto a clear vinyl sticker sheet, which is then placed on the sacrificial card.

The newest method involves the following changes:

1. Use of a frosted transparent vinyl sticker sheet instead of a clear one. Helps with the colors being more vibrant.

2. Using a white paint pen, drawing a mask on the adhesive side of the vinyl sticker sheet where the holo foil is masked. Just like a white plate layer.

See reddit.com/r/customtradingcards for more. There's also a dude doing lenticular prints for the PTCGPocket immersive cards. UV ink printers, like that Eufy, are also on their way into consumer markets, so we may be able to print textured cards soon.

Applications Hypothesis

Given what we know about diffraction gratings, color, and white ink masking, there could be some interesting applications for 3D printing.

A mask layer could be applied to a holographic build plate, maybe with a high temp adhesive vinyl, and printing directly onto it could give you custom patterns, like the reverse holo Pokeball in recent PTCG sets. You would want a highly reflective base layer (just like the aluminized layer on real cards), so you could try silk PLA. You could then attempt a toner transfer over the holographic layer.

Toner Transfer Methods

Printer toner is a mixture of pigment and a plastic polymer. When heat and pressure is applied in the printer, it binds to the paper.

Toner can be printed on laser printer friendly transparency sheets, or potentially on sticker release paper (buy sticker paper, remove the sticker). The toner has a weak adhesion to this surface, and can be transferred to another surface by heat/pressure, or acrylic medium. The hypothesis behind acrylic medium is that it binds to the target surface and the toner pigment (something something acrylic medium and toner are both polymers), and when the acrylic medium dries it binds the toner to the target surface and pulls it off the original surface. However, this bond is not durable, because it doesn't bind the toner to the surface, just to the acrylic medium. Heat/pressure is better.

Sticker release paper and heat method.

Misc

Magic TCG uses a blue core 310 GSM. Manufacturers for cards use somewhere between 310 to 330 GSM. 280 GSM is the low end. Source

Hmm something interesting, read later https://www.pineislandgames.com/blog/anatomy-of-a-card