White, bamboo or metal?

Printed versus engraved

The white card is printed. A dye-sublimation press lays down full color edge to edge, which is why it can carry a photograph, a colored background, artwork, anything you can see on a screen.

Bamboo and metal are engraved. A laser marks the surface, and a marked surface has two states: marked and not. On bamboo the mark darkens the wood; on black stainless steel it does the opposite and comes up bright against the dark face. Either way there are two tones and no shades in between, so a photograph becomes something closer to a woodcut. That is a real look and some cards are better for it — but it is not a photograph and you should not order one expecting one.

Everything else is the same. The chip, the tap, what happens on the phone, the ability to change the video afterwards — all identical across the three.

The three, side by side

Prices per card, and the right-hand column is the rate once you order 25 or more. Shipping is free within the US at every quantity.

Choosing

White — $30

The default, and the right answer for most keepsakes. It is the only card that carries a photograph, which means it is the only one that works for the cards people most often want: a couple on a wedding favor, a face on a remembrance card, a child on a birth announcement. It is also the lightest at 5g, which matters if you are posting a hundred of them yourself.

Choose it if there is a picture. Choose it if you are not sure.

Bamboo — $30

Real wood, engraved. The same price as white, so this is a choice about how the card feels in the hand rather than about budget. It suits cards that are mostly type — names and a date, a line of a poem, a logo — and it suits weddings that already have wood, linen and greenery everywhere else in them.

Bamboo varies from card to card because it is a natural material, so no two are quite the same color. That is either the appeal or the problem, depending on the person.

Metal — $50

Black stainless steel with a bright engraved mark. At 29g it is more than twice the weight of the white card, and weight is most of what makes it feel like it cost something. This is the card for a business that hands one over across a table, and for the keepsake where the object itself is meant to be the gift.

It is also the one where the volume rate does real work: $50 for one, $38 each at 25.

A note on what is not here yet

Wood and metal cards printed in full color — photographs on those substrates rather than engraving — are a real product and not one we can sell you today, because the press that does it is not in the workshop yet. If that is what you are after, it is worth asking rather than settling.