This forums is for questions, answers, and discussion about First Edition rules, formats, and expansions.
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By Majestic (Doug Taylor)
 - Alpha Quadrant
 -  
#415705
As I've mentioned elsewhere, I've been buying up some old 1E cards, and one thing that many of them suffer from is being horribly curved.

I opened up an entire box of Mirror, Mirror that are extremely warped. And tonight I just opened up a box of Holodeck Adventures that are also a bit curved and not flat.

I tried flattening them by placing equal stacks underneath a bunch of heavy 5,000 count card boxes (for like a week), but it didn't help much. So I took a smaller stack and placed them under a pile of really heavy books, but again, not much success.

Has anybody found a good method for getting cards flat, after you get ones straight out of the pack that are so warped like this?

They're probably not that bad once they're in a card sleeve (if used in a deck), but it's a little disappointing not to be able to fix what are otherwise beautiful cards.
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#415707
In my experience, time and pressure eventually heal all wounds. Can take months, but they get there.

(Also, confinement in binder sleeves helps a lot. Squeezed on a shelf with 4000 other cards in binder sleeves, they start to conform.)
 
By Klauser
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#415715
Majestic wrote:As I've mentioned elsewhere, I've been buying up some old 1E cards, and one thing that many of them suffer from is being horribly curved.

I opened up an entire box of Mirror, Mirror that are extremely warped. And tonight I just opened up a box of Holodeck Adventures that are also a bit curved and not flat.

I tried flattening them by placing equal stacks underneath a bunch of heavy 5,000 count card boxes (for like a week), but it didn't help much. So I took a smaller stack and placed them under a pile of really heavy books, but again, not much success.

Has anybody found a good method for getting cards flat, after you get ones straight out of the pack that are so warped like this?

They're probably not that bad once they're in a card sleeve (if used in a deck), but it's a little disappointing not to be able to fix what are otherwise beautiful cards.
This was a common problem. Most of the boxes that arrived in our area (West Texas) back in 2000 had exactly this problem. As I recall, it was a finishing problem at the printers at the time.

BCSWowbagger's advice above is your best bet towards fixing them.
 
By adf8
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#415757
BCSWowbagger wrote:In my experience, time and pressure eventually heal all wounds. Can take months, but they get there.

(Also, confinement in binder sleeves helps a lot. Squeezed on a shelf with 4000 other cards in binder sleeves, they start to conform.)

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

If you're looking to accelerate the process, combine with a humidifier
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By Majestic (Doug Taylor)
 - Alpha Quadrant
 -  
#415776
Thanks for the help, all. I didn't know that about those sets around 2000, but it makes sense based on what I'm seeing.

So just the plain, vanilla 9-card binder sleeves? I would think you'd have to pack a ton of them in each binder via that method. Or do you not keep them in an actual 3-ring binder, and just use the binder sleeves as a way to separate each card?

I used to store all of my ST CCG cards that way, by set. Unfortunately, my Future Enterprise got a tiny bit bent in the upper left hand corner, because the ring of the binder it was in somehow contacted it.

The humidifier is a good idea. I'm thinking perhaps if I stick with my method of flattening a ton of them at the same time, but crank up the heat in that room and get a humidifier to aid in the process.
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#415778
There's a lot of discussion about this stuff with respect to Magic cards (not suprising, given the large player base), most of which is probably equally applicable to Star Trek cards.

The best suggestion I've seen is to moisturize the card (put it in a steamy, wet area for 20 minutes - but not so much as to allow moisture to contact or condense on the card itself!). Then, flatten it under a heavy weight in a very DRY area for an extended period of time (at least a week - perhaps in an area with a DEhumidifier). The theory is that the water you introduced initially will be sapped out of the card while it's being flattened in the dry environment, leaving the fibers in a new, flatter position - essentially, "re-warping" the card into a flatter shape.

But I suggest you google around to do some research. The Magic guys are even more invested in this stuff than we are.
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