Card Sleeves for european Heroquest card format?

[Max Rebo]

Hi,

I'm looking for Card sleeves that fit perfectly european Heroquest card format.

Do you have any idea?

Thanks a lot.

@+

Max

[Phantom07]

I am also looking for appropriate sleeves (european HQ) but couldn't find them so far.

The size is 54mm x 80mm. The green ones from FFG are 56mm x 87mm. That's a little too big, but of course better than nothing...

Any other suggestions?

Thank you very much for your help.

[Sjeng]

I don't use my original cards anymore. I printed copies of the original cards plus a bunch of addon cards and custon cards, and laminated them all.

[Patroclus]

I’ve used the 56x87 sleeves and here are some pictures of how to cut the top.

They are perfect except the top

Put a clip at the bottom to keep 5 or 6 cards together as possible.

Use a ruler and a hobby knife or whatever you have to make a straight cut.

Done, the result is perfect. The difference between the different cuts is unnoticed with bare eye.

Have a nice hobby time

[Sjeng]

not bad at all! thanks for the pics

[Phantom07]

wow, thanks! I guess I have to try that out...

[Blacktales]

For those still interested in finding sleeves for european-format HQ cards, there are now several companies that sell sleeves that should fit perfectly and not need trimming :

- Ultra pro sells thick 54x80 sleeves (marketed for Settlers of Catan) as part of their Board Game Sleeves line. A pack of 50 sleeves is around $3 if I recall correctly. I have sleeved 5 copies of standard and Advanced Quest European HeroQuest plus a copy of Space Crusade with those now and they fit perfectly. Your FLGS should be able to order them from you if they don't already carry it, or you can now find them online pretty easily.

- Mayday Games is also supposed to sell 54x80 sleeves called "Yucatan Narrow Card Sleeves". They come in a pack of a 100 and should be thinner than Ultra pro sleeves if they are the same thickness as their other standard lines of sleeves, though still quite better than penny sleeves as far as thickness and durability is concerned. $2.25 for a pack of 100 sleeves. If you want to go this route, I strongly suggest you buy them or order them through your FLGS or another online retailer and NOT directly from Mayday as they have quite a reputation for unreliability as far as stock availability, shipping time and customer service is concerned. A quick google search should tell you everything to know about not wanting to deal directly with this company. The sleeves themselves are, at least in my humble opinion, quite all right for the price and I have bought quite a few in the recent months and sleeved several boardgames with them and they hold quite nicely.

- Swan Panasia also sells 55x82 sleeves (also marketed for SoC) that supposedly fit HeroQuest very well. 160 sleeves per pack for $4. I have never seen this brand at a FLGS and don't now if they are available through distributors so ordering online might be the only option. I have never dealt with this company or used their sleeves do I don't know anything about the quality but from a quick online search people seem to be satisfied by the price/quality ratio so far. But those specific sleeves are both listed as "in stock" and "preorder" currently on their webpage so they might not be currently available.

Hope it helps !

[Sjeng]

Thanks for that very helpful and informative post! welcome to the forum Blacktales
Hope to read more of you and your HeroQuest endeavours

[bruenor]

Could you not just laminate the original cards and cut around them?
That way they would be pristine forever and more durable during play.

[Blacktales]

Well apart from the humongous amount of work laminating and cutting each individual card would be compared to just sleeving (even assuming that you don't overheat or cut through a card in the process and that your are steady enough to cut all the cards at the exact same size, which usually requires specialized equipment), lamination is not considered a safe conservation technique. The laminating process itself (heat + pressure and/or adhesive) is not safe for documents. Most laminating materials are not made for archival and can be chemically unstable. Moreover, cold or heat lamination in most cases cannot be reversed, which is quite a big deal in the case of old OOP cards or precious documents.

I've actually tried to use laminated printed HQ cards before I was able to score a few copies of the game in thrift stores and that was mostly a pain. I would never try to do this with original cards. Laminating the cards themselves usually introduced bubbles at some point and the texture would be different depending on heat. Any dust particle or hair left on the cards before laminating stood out quite a bit when examining the finished product. I tried both leaving a border around the cards (non-sticking hot laminate) and cutting to size (cold or adhesive hot laminate) but in the first case getting a consistent size between cards was a challenge and in the second I would usually have the laminate lift from the cards in some areas. In both cases, the cards were usually too thick, too rigid and weird to handle and shuffling would eventually ruin the borders or lift the laminate from the cards. And most non-professional round corners cutters cannot cut throught laminate cleanly and reliably so you would have to keep the corners square and those can be ruined quite fast. After a few tries I simply abandoned as there was no way I could reliably and cheaply reproduce a HQ set of cards matching my expectations.

Sleeves are easy to use and cheap if you don't go overboard and get the most expensive ones, if they break you simply slide the card in another one, most of them are acid-free / archival quality, soft or rigid depending on the thickness you choose and they do not hamper shuffling. And they do not modify the cards in any non-reversible way. Some people hate sleeves as they interfere with the tactile pleasure of playing cards and when they are new they tend to slide around the table and getting a stable stack is a challenge but to be able to preserve HQ cards just a bit longer I can deal with those few problems.

Edit : replaced lamination with conservation, which makes much more sense