HOW BIG IS A TRADING CARD.

A standard trading card is 2.5 × 3.5 in, or 63.5 × 89 mm. That is the size of the cards in a pack, and the size of every card we print. Below: what the print file looks like before it is cut, why our corners are square, what the coating does, and what holds a card once you have it. The cards themselves are on our custom trading cards page, and how it's made covers every check before anything is printed.

2.5 × 3.5 in is the size collectors mean when they say standard, and the size that card sleeves, binder pages and top-loaders are made for. It has been the common size for sports cards for decades, so a custom card sits in a collection without looking out of place. Ours are made at that size on professional photo card stock, and the printed sets come as 12 or 24 cards — printed in California, shipped free in the US.

A card is printed bigger than it ends up. The artwork runs past the line where the card will be cut, and that extra margin, the bleed, is trimmed away. No cutter lands on precisely the same line every time: if the art stopped exactly at the edge, a cut that drifted by a hair would leave a thin white sliver along one side. With bleed, a drifting cut still lands on artwork.

So our print file is 816 × 1110 px at 300 dpi, a little more than 2.5 × 3.5 in: the card plus its bleed. The same logic works inward. Nothing that matters sits near the cut: the name, the stats and the QR code stay well inside the edge, so the trim only ever takes background.

Printing the digital files yourself? They are PNG at 300 dpi. Ask the shop to print them at actual size, with no scaling, and to trim the bleed off at the card's edge. A file scaled down to fit a sheet shrinks the card along with it.

Our cards are square-cut: all four corners are cut straight, with no curve. That is a design choice, not a shortcut. Every finish draws a frame around its card, and the frame runs right into the corners; a square cut keeps the whole frame, where a curved cut would clip it. One border shape serves all six finishes, so the cut is the same whichever finish you pick.

The face of every card is UV-coated: a clear coat goes over the printed face and is hardened under ultraviolet light. The coat seals the ink and helps the face stand up to being handled, sleeved and passed around. A sleeve still helps: the coating looks after the print, not the edges.

Because the cards are the standard size, they fit standard card sleeves, nine-pocket binder pages and standard top-loaders, the same as any other card in a collection. Sleeve the card first, then slide it into the top-loader: the soft sleeve keeps the face from scuffing on the way in. A card in a top-loader can stand on a shelf or ride in a backpack without bending.

On the back: season stats (up to three), highlight line, athlete signature line, registered card ID, QR code.

Every card carries its registered card ID on the back. Scan the QR code beside it and the card's own page opens, with the edition, the stats and the season. Type the ID into the registry and the same page opens. The rule behind the ID: one registered edition per athlete, per finish, per season; page kept online at least five years. Every shipped package also carries a free printed Certificate of Authenticity with the same ID.

A card is made to be held. A poster is the same artwork made for a wall: 18 × 24 in or 24 × 36 in, printed as a matte poster, 189 g/m². The stats and the class year stay on the card, and the poster is the art at full size. Cards and a poster together are priced as a set. More on custom sports posters.