Recommendations please - HEAVY 5x7 card stock

Colleagues:

Can anyone recommend card stock, 10x7 scored for a folded 5x7 photo greeting card, that is thicker than 11 mil?

I'd like to start selling greeting cards as a way to help determine which images in my gallery have the greatest appeal to consumers who may not want to pay for matted prints. However, all of the card stock I could find for printing on ink jet printers (Epson) is too thin to compare favorably with mass market cards. (I have tried Red River Paper and just about every other one I could find using Internet searches.)

It's not a problem if the paper company doesn't have readily available ICC profiles, like Red River, because I don't mind having them specially made. I really just want a good, stiff paper that holds ink jet images well.

Thanks for any help/suggestions,

CAZ

I should clarify I'm not opposed to ordering the cards from a printing company but all of the companies I have been able to find either (a) have a 25 card minimum (too many for test marketing) or (b) allow single card orders, but print their company name on the back (seriously detracting from the professional look I'm trying to accomplish with the heaver card stock).

So, if anyone has a suggestion for a printing company without either of those drawbacks, I'd love to hear it.

Thanks again,

CAZ

Since you're not averse to ordering from a printing company, have you checked out Shutterfly? They've just introduced a high-quality card stock and it makes good prints. You can order as few as you like if you want a test. The only problem is that, while they allow you to print on both inside "pages' as well as on the front, inexplicably they don't allow for printing on the back. I solve that by printing my own labels and sticking them on. But they don't have "Shutterfly" written anywhere on them.

Thanks! It's worth a shot. Have you tried printing on the back with either an ink jet printer or a laser printer? I think I'll order a couple, try it (printing on the back), and see how it goes.

Caz,

Here is a company you may want to check out to see if they offer what you are trying to find - Red River Paper. You can order a sample packet as well.

http://www.redrivercatalog.com/

have you tried "Photographer's Edge" products?

Thanks Barbara and Arnab. I've tried both Red River and Photographer's Edge and if I don't end up finding what I'm looking for, I'll probably go with Photographer's Edge custom option. The PE solutions costs 2x more than RR but the cards feel more substantial therefore create a higher perceived value.

I'm currently waiting for some samples to arrive from Moab Paper and also checking into SeeHere.com (a new sub-company of Fuji Film) for their printing.

I'm getting to closer but still open to suggestions.

Thanks all!

CAZ, Moo.com has a 25 card minimum but you can use multiple images. They also let you put your own text and image (I use my sig) on the back. They allow you to elect NOT to have their name printed on the back, but they say this is a temporary feature.

Thanks Joseph! That looks like a good option. I've ordered their sample pack and if the Moab Paper option doesn't work out, then I think I'll go with Moo.com!

Hey CAZ - I'm a huge fan of Moab Paper. I use their Entrada Bright 190 for 5x7 greeting cards. Pre-scored, includes envelopes and all that jazz. I don't know if they're greater than 11 mil but they are quite hefty, prints look gorgeous on them and the per item cost is reasonable (but not cheap). I don't sell them...yet. I've only been using them for marketing but you could easily mark them up 100% and still be in the ballpark. When done right I think they definitely project a professional image. Good luck, dude!

CAZ, I use Red River Polar all the time. You just have to look at the sales point in a different way. If you are printing on archival paper using archival ink your card quality is the same as printing on Epson Ultimate Premium Presentation Paper Matte, which is what I use for my prints that I sell.

The other way to go is to get cards into which you insert your image that you or a supplier prints.

People like to think they can frame the card and that works with the ones I do. I wholesale for $2.50 and they retail for $5.

Thanks everyone! After spending far too much time investigating all the options, I've decided to go with Moab Lasal Photo Matte 235gm 7" x 10" 50 cards (2-sided printing). I liked this paper the best for the way it rendered images (personal preference) and it's weight (heavier and thicker than the others).

Combining that paper (38 cents/card), with Clearbags protective bags (5 cents/card) and fancy peel & seal envelopes (22 cents/card) and printing them on the old Epson 2200 I have sitting around doing nothing (10 cents/card?) leaves me with a cost of less than 80 cents per high-quality card that I sell for $3.99 or five for $15.99.

That means I can actually profit from market testing. As Eleanor said, people buy the cards so they can frame them - and "wallet votes" are the only votes that count. This is, of course, far more cost effective than guessing which new images people will buy then paying lots of dough to mount them, hang them on the gallery wall, and see if anyone will actually buy them. We all know how costly it is to have photo inventory sitting in the gallery, our basements, our storage units, etc. Ouch!

As a side note, almost all of the companies I contacted had absolutely terrific customer service - Photographer's Edge, Red River Paper, and Legion/Moab, were all a pleasure to work with.

On the flip side, SeeHere.com (owned by Fuji Film) had NO customer service whatsoever - calls ended up routed to a general voice mail and the messages were un-returned and I never received a response to the email I sent to customer service either.

Thank you all for your input - I hope this thread will be useful to others in the same situation!