Sports cards

Foilboard

Also written: Foil board · Foilboard parallel

A card printed on metallic stock, so the shine comes from under the ink rather than from a layer on top.

Physical formThe card itself is made differently

A foilboard card is printed on metallic stock. The whole board is foil, and the image is printed on top of it — which is the opposite arrangement from a refractor or a prizm, where a reflective layer sits over the printed image.

That inversion is not a technicality; it changes how the card looks. Because the metal is underneath, the shine comes through the light areas of the image, where less ink covers the board. Dark areas stay dark and matte. A coated card shines everywhere, including across the dark parts of the photograph.

How to spot it

• Watch where the shine is. Bright areas of the picture glow; shadows do not. On a refractive card the sheen crosses everything.
• Look at the edge of the card. Foil board shows a metallic core at the cut edge that paper stock does not.
• Read the parallel name. Manufacturers name foilboard parallels plainly, and the name usually pairs the word with a colour describing the tint of the board itself.

Foilboard parallels come in tinted versions — the board is coloured before printing — so the same card can exist on several different metallic grounds, each its own rung on the ladder. Some are unnumbered and some carry a serial; read the card.

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