As an avid Pokémon card collector and ‘playground trader’ since I was a child, I felt there was no really cool offering on the market to display my best cards, or protect them from grubby fingers. Storing them in a box or tin along with the standard cards, even in a plastic sleeve, wasn’t really the best way to show off my pride and joy when fellow Pokémon or Magic: The Gathering buddies came to visit.
There seems to be a lot of picture or photo frame type displays on offer, but nothing that was a dedicated, and more importantly, customised display frame.
Being part of a family business in the UK that designs and makes custom items for all manner of business and end user customers, I decided to design a frame for my trading cards that not only looks fab, but also offers a degree of protection to my best cards.
Using a UV stabilised crystal clear acrylic along with a premium grade stainless steel effect laminate (both are raw material products we use here as standard) we created a multi-layered ‘sandwich’ frame that can house a trading card.. or cards.. allowing it to be displayed and look awesome, or passed around without fear of the card being touched. Rather than using glue, bonding tape or screws etc… which could damage the card if not placed correctly, we utilise nickel plated back-to-back fixings to clamp the frame together, which no only looks great, but also allows you to easily dis-assemble the frames on arrival, for you to place your card(s) and then re-assemble.
.. and there you have it. TCF was born in November 2021.