How trading cards are made

A booster pack is dealt by machine: cards are slit from 121-card sheets, then dropped in from separate rarity groups.

stations: 6
things upstream: 56
raw sources: 17
steps from the ground: 10

The short version

Trading cards are offset-printed in grids on large sheets of cardstock, as many as 121 to a sheet. Rare cards get foil or texture. A slitter cuts each sheet into strips and then cards, and machines collate them from separate groups so every pack gets a set mix of rarities. Packs are wrapped, weighed and boxed.

Print the sheets

Offset presses transfer ink from metal plates to rubber blankets and then to cardstock of 250 to 400 grams per square meter. One sheet can hold 121 cards. Blue or black layers inside the better stocks stop light showing through.

121 cards to a sheet

Goes in
Cardboard Ink
Foil the rare cards

Only rare cards get extra finishing. Hot foil stamping presses holographic foil on with a heated die, and raised textures come from UV varnish pushed through a screen.
Slit the sheets apart

A slitting machine cuts each sheet into strips and then into individual cards. Every card sits in a planned position on the sheet, so it comes out in the same place in every deck. Off-center cuts hurt a card's value.
Check borders and corners

Corners are smoothed, and staff pull cards to check thickness and the width of their borders.
Collate the rarity groups

Machines build each pack from separate streams. One Star Trek line dropped five cards from one group, added a rotating special card, then laid four cards from another group on top. Premium inserts are scattered by random numbers so they do not cluster in a box.
Wrap and pack

Packs are wrapped automatically in foil or plastic, weighed, and packed by hand into display boxes.

Goes in
Plastic Cardboard box

End of the lineTrading cards

Worth repeating

One North Carolina plant's presses are 120 feet long and print 26.62 million Pokemon cards a day.
Printers keep new cards secret, because customers do not want them leaked before release.
Topps started putting trading cards in bubble gum packs in 1950.