October 23, 2009: Card Curling Issues With Fairy Dust And Waiting For Santa

When we got our first actual packs of Fairy Dust and Waiting For Santa, we noticed that our cards were showing some curl starting a day or so after opening them. That's not uncommon in new packs of cards, and we were not concerned.

Then we noticed it in other packs, as soon as they were opened. Now we were concerned.

Now we're seeing this curl even in unopened packs in our warehouse. The short answer is: it's caused by the foil, which covers one whole side of the card. Clearly this was not the way these should have been done.

We've tried to flex the cards the other way, and to put them under heavy books for a couple of days, and so far we have not found a permanent solution. As a temporary solution, you can bend the cards against the curl right before play, then shuffle them into your decks. And maybe if the cards are flattened for a month or two, they'll stay flat. But maybe not. We don't know. Billions of years from now, when the Sun is a red giant and the Earth has been reduced to gas, these cards may be floating through space, still curled.

If this bugs you, you should spend your $8 on something else. Do you have a Chibithulhu? If this doesn't bug you, yay, they're very shiny.

We didn't print very many of these, because the whole idea of Munchkin "boosters" was an experiment. It turns out that you folks like boosters, but this other problem makes me glad it was a short print run. We do expect to reprint, and probably very soon, but unless the printer finds a way to for-sure avoid curling without doubling the card cost, we will NOT use foil. We'll either use metallic ink for the shiny bits, or do without shiny bits.

-- Steve Jackson