Japanese Sheet Size

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lethe
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Japanese Sheet Size

Post by lethe » Sun Sep 20, 2020 10:02 am

Maybe people know the sheet size for Japanese printings, but I've never seen it discussed.

I'm pretty confident the size of the sheet is 112 (or a closely related number) as I've done many sequence reconstructions that come out to 112 or just below 112. (For example, commons are usually 4x27 + 3x37 + 3x37. Token sheets which have the least constraint on size are usually exactly 112.) But I couldn't deduce how this factors into width and height. (Japanese printings seem to have fewer irregularities that could be clues to such a thing.)

However, the placeholder (checklist) cards from ZNR offer a new clue. There are 9 variations of the placeholder that form a 3x3 panorama. These have art extending to the edge of the card. This means (basically) they must either be gutter-cut or arranged on the sheet according to the panorama. Gutter-cutting means leaving space between cards on the sheet. Supposedly the first time this was used was Unstable (where it was used for all the sheets), and it has been used at least some of the time for sheets with borderless planeswalkers and other "Booster Fun" treatments extending to the edge of the card. But it is more expensive I guess, as least because you are fitting fewer cards per sheet. The panorama option was used in the original Unglued as well as for meld cards in EMN.

Here, it appears they are arranged according to panorama. These are the sequences from the boxes I've looked at so far: (these are independent boxes)
Box 1: 4,5,6,1,7,8,9,7,8,9,7,8,9,7,8,9,7,8
Box 2: 7,8,9,7,8,9,7,8,9,7,8,9,7,8,9,4,1,2
Box 3: 3,1,?,3,7,4,5,6,4,5,6,4,5,6,4,5,6,4

Panorama arrangement is:
1,2,3
4,5,6
7,8,9

Pattern seem pretty clear as 5 (or more) copies of a panorama plus a a "left edge" card before moving to the next row. If we need a factor of 112, that means the width (relative to card orientation) must be 16, so sheets are probably 16 by 7.

This also means card sequences go from left to right, then top to bottom. (This is expected, but I think not confirmed for Japanese.)

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