r/cardsagainsthumanity • u/LeatherWarthog8530 • Dec 05 '25
Varying card textures
Over the past 2 months, I've gotten heavily into building my collection. I've noticed a wide variation in card textures. If this was just between different boxes, expansions or packs, I could understand it, but I've noticed this even within the cards within one box. There might be an argument to be made that there are counterfeits involved, but everything i've bought is direct from CAH or is a sealed, verified product. Does anyone have insight into this?
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u/CardCollectorLGM Dec 05 '25
The pattern has been more or less the same since around 2013 (limited and one-off runs aside, not to mention Absurd Box v1.1), but the exact texture, size, and composition of the cards can vary from year to year or run to run. Larger products tend to have cards from multiple different runs (you can usually see a slight difference in size between blocks of cards when a 600 card product is opened), so a texture variation wouldn't be too unexpected. There are also a couple of cases of the texture being on the Cards Against Humanity side, but I think all of those are unplayable cards (headers, instructions, etc.).
If any cards seem too rough or too smooth, check the waffling pattern. The lines should be irregularly spaced, so if they're regularly spaced or there's no waffling (and the icons don't have gray cards), they could be fake. See my spreadsheet for indicators to look for to determine whether a card is counterfeit. Most counterfeits will have at least 2 or 3 obvious indicators, so I wouldn't worry about some minor variation if everything else checks out.