Internal Carbon layer and tarot

Hi,
Who (besides MRP) manufactures cards with the special internal carbon layer inside them? You know, the carbon to keep the cards looking flawless ! Or is this just an MRP thing? Now that I have an MRP deck, I feel like the standard decks (the ones that crease, fold, warp) just wont do.

Erm, cards are made of paper, which is made of wood, which is largely carbon ...

nisaba said:

Erm, cards are made of paper, which is made of wood, which is largely carbon ...

Click to expand...

haha, but MRP's cards are special in that they have a special layer of carbon in the deck to keep the deck looking awesome and from creasing. At least, that's what I understood from reading a thread about the VR and FT. Anway, it's true, that their decks have a special something which keeps them looking great because my FT deck gets shuffled numerous times a day and the cards still look as perfect as when i first opened the deck.

My Granny Jones deck, made as far as I am aware, from carbon-based wood products without laminate, has been shuffled many tens of thousands of times over the last fifteen-odd years, and looks perfect: no bends, no fading.

I don't do anything special with it - it's wrapped in watered silk and then placed in a crocheted acrylic pouch that has a piece of bleached coral as a fastener. It lives permanently in my handbag, so it gets jostled around a fair bit.

I had a bunch of cards from my Victorian Romantic deck peel on the corners. They sent me replacement cards, so I went ahead and peeled apart the cardboard on the old ones to see the carbon layer. It looks like ground-up charcoal sandwiched between the outer layers of the card. I know Karen from Magic Realist says it strengthens the card stock, but I've heard from a printing specialist that the purpose is actually to block light passage--it's like when you wear a slip under a dress, I think.

Lo Scarabeo uses the same type of carbon layer.
http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=427368&postcount=9
It's the same sort of thing found in playing cards I believe.

If Tarot cards are printed in sheets of eighty and guillotined apart after printing, shouldn't any black layer show when looking at the edges of any deck?

<grabs nearest deck and squints myopically at edge, side-on>

Rats! Foiled by gilt!

You'd think, but it doesn't seem to be structured that way, and I didn't keep the card I peeled apart.