You finish a break at 11pm with forty shipments to build. Each one is a small pile of top loaders, banded or bagged, going into a mailer. The Serial Seal™ has to land on something solid, and it has to cost seconds per package rather than minutes. The numbering is decided long before that — you pick a prefix and a starting number on the builder and the sheet prints in sequence — so the only thing left at the table is where it goes.
This is the format where the geometry runs out fastest. A fold that sits flat on a five-card pile will not sit flat on a fifteen-card pile.
Work out the landing before you fold
A seal is 0.75 in x 1.77 in. Fold it over an edge and the two faces do not each get half of that 1.77 in, because the edge itself eats some of the length. The figure you want is:
per-face landing = (1.77 - T) / 2
T is the thickness of the edge you are wrapping. Over one top loader it is small. Over a stack it is every holder in the pile added together, and it climbs fast.
Top loaders are 3 in x 4 in on the outside whatever the point size — only depth changes. Published exteriors sit around 0.0625 in for standard 20pt, 0.125 in for 59pt, 0.203 in for 108pt and 0.3125 in for 240pt. Stock varies and a tight band compresses a pile, so measure one of your own stacks with a ruler rather than trusting the multiplication.
| Stack | T | (1.77 - T) / 2 |
|---|---|---|
| 5 x 20pt | 0.31" | 0.73" |
| 10 x 20pt | 0.63" | 0.57" |
| 5 x 59pt | 0.63" | 0.57" |
| 5 x 108pt | 1.02" | 0.375" |
Those rows are illustration. The formula is the part to keep.
On our own packing table, a fold gets unreliable somewhere under roughly 0.55 in to 0.58 in of landing per face — corners lift while we are still boxing. That is handling experience, not a measured threshold. Seal one stack at the thickness you actually build, leave it in a mailer overnight and look at the corners in the morning. We plan around T = 0.6 in as the ceiling for folding and bag anything thicker.
Where the Serial Seal™ goes
Stack under about 0.6 in: fold it over the 3 in edge. Run the seal perpendicular to the rubber band so it crosses the band. The 0.75 in width covers a quarter of that short edge, and on five standard top loaders you get about 0.73 in of adhesive on each outer face.
Offset it so the adhesive sits over the top or bottom border of the card in the outermost holder rather than over the art. The window is disposable PVC, so residue there is a shrug. Residue across a card image is a bad unboxing.
Stack over about 0.6 in: bag it and use a single. Put the pile in a resealable team bag and lay one seal vertically across the free edge of the flap on the back. Bag film is thin enough that T rounds to nothing, so each side lands near 0.885 in, the upper bound the formula allows.
Polypropylene is slick and low surface energy, so the bond is weaker there than on the PVC of a top loader. Burnish the full length hard and check both ends before the bag goes in the mailer. None of that changes what the seal is doing on a bag, which is what it does everywhere else: carrying a number you photographed and wrote down. More on that format in how to seal a team bag.
Never fold a seal over a bare card or a penny-sleeved card riding at the top of a pile. If the bundle is mixed, cap each end with an empty top loader so the adhesive only ever touches a holder.
Both routes end at the same sheet, so the decision worth spending thought on is not the fold — it is what the prefix says. BRK plus the break date reads back cleanly when you are scrolling a spreadsheet a season later; a bare number tells you nothing about which night it came off. That is one field at the builder, typed once and counted up for the whole run.
The routine, in order
- Order the seals as one numbered run. Pick a prefix and a start number and let it count up — BRK-0001, BRK-0002, on through the sheet. No two seals share a number, so the sheet arrives already in sequence.
- Build the stack. Cards into holders. If the pile looks over 0.6 in, skip the band and reach for a bag.
- Band it tight. You are photographing a bundle, so make it one bundle — a slack band lets holders shift and work their way out in transit.
- Apply and burnish. Fold across the band, or lay a single across the bag flap edge. Thumb down both faces in one pass.
- Photograph it. One phone shot with the number readable, before it goes in the mailer.
- Log the number against the order. Serial, buyer, date, one spreadsheet row. Batch the typing at the end of the night rather than switching apps forty times.
- Mailer, then label. Do not let the shipping label overlap the seal. See how to seal a shipping package.
If a bundle will sit for a week or two before it ships, bag it rather than banding it. Rubber bands cold-flow into PVC and leave permanent impressions in the holders.
What the Serial Seal™ actually gives you
A seal on a bundle does not prove the cards inside are the cards that came off the break. Somebody can peel this one off and put a different one on — true of any adhesive film sold, ours included, and a break stack is the easy case for it, because the buyer has never seen the cards.
What you have instead is a number that existed before the package left your table. You picked the prefix, we printed the sequence, and you tied BRK-0184 to a buyer's name in a dated photo. Forty packages, forty different numbers, so a question about one stays about one. The log is the asset; the seal is what makes it visible in a photograph.
The standard layout prints VOID IF DAMAGED on the seal face. That is a notice about the condition you are selling under. It states something; it enforces nothing.
If a buyer opens a claim, the marketplace runs its own process and decides on its own terms. Your dated photo and your log are things you can hand over — see the return fraud page.
How many do you need
One seal per shipment. Not one per card, not one per hit — the number names a package, so a buyer who took four spots and gets one forty-card mailer takes one seal, the same as the buyer who got two commons. Count mailers going out the door, never cards coming off the break.
The multiplication is yours to run: shipments off a typical night, times the nights you actually break in a month, times the months you want to buy ahead for. Two nights a week at twenty-five shipments each is two hundred a month, so a quarter of breaking is six hundred seals. Round up a little — you will set a few down crooked at midnight, and seals come in packs of twelve anyway.
60 Serial Seal™ minimum · From $30.00 · As low as $0.30 each in bulk. No setup, die, or design fees, and a commercial license and copyright are included.
Sixty seals are $30.00, 50 cents each at list, and that is the minimum order. It covers a night with seals to spare, and it is the sane way to test the fold on your own stacks before you commit to a run. At 120 the price steps to 45 cents each — $54.00 for the run. At 600 — the quarter in the example above — it is $240.00, 40 cents a shipment, and the ladder keeps stepping: 36 cents at 1,200 ($432.00 for the run), 33 cents at 2,400, and 30 cents at 4,200, where it holds — 30 cents is the floor for every run past that. Self-serve tops out at 10,008 seals ($3,002.40); past that we quote the run rather than post it, so ask us.
The rate steps down by itself at checkout. There is no code, and only one tier applies at a time, so a single order of 600 costs less than two orders of 300 placed a month apart. Set the run length at the builder.
Common mistakes
- Folding over a pile that is too thick. Five 108pt holders leave 0.375 in per face and it peels somewhere between your table and the buyer. Run the formula first.
- Adhesive on the card or the sleeve. Seal a holder or seal the bag. A 2 mil penny sleeve is weaker than the adhesive stuck to it — how to seal a penny sleeve covers why.
- Skipping the photo. No dated image with the serial legible means you have thin printed film and no record.
Questions people ask
How thick a stack can I fold a Serial Seal™ over?
Around 0.6 in in our hands — roughly ten standard 20pt holders, or five 59pt. Run (1.77 - T) / 2 for your own build and test one before you trust a whole night to it. Thicker than that, bag the stack and put a single across the flap edge.
Should I seal the bundle or the mailer?
Whichever one you want the photograph of. Sealing the bundle keeps the record intact after the mailer is torn open, which is usually what a breaker wants. Sealing the mailer only tells you about the outer package.
Can I use one serial for a whole break?
You can, but one per shipment is more useful. Give each buyer's package its own number so a question about one order does not pull in every other package from that night.
How many Serial Seals™ do I need?
Count shipments, not cards — one number per mailer that leaves the table. The section above runs the multiplication on your own nights and shows what each answer costs.
What you are buying is numbered thin film with adhesive for the outside of a package, printed as one sequence so no two shipments repeat. Sixty seals are $30.00, the minimum order; at 600 the rate is down to 40 cents each and keeps stepping to its floor of 30 cents at 4,200, and runs past 10,008 are quoted. Set a prefix and a start number at the builder, or put your own logo on the face at add a logo. The FAQ covers material and numbering.
Serial Seal is an independent printer. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by PSA, Beckett, CGC, SGC, Ultra Pro, BCW, eBay, Whatnot, TCGplayer or any card manufacturer. Brand names are used only to describe the products they make. Nothing here is legal advice.