My friend and I got together in the lab to see if we could identify packs that had foil cards in them by detecting whether they were heavier than a regular pack. Our hypothesis was that foil cards should be slightly heavier than regular cards due to the foil coating, and that with a sensitive enough scale, we should be able to figure out which packs, by weight, contain foil cards.
Our study specimens were 9 packs of Alara Reborn and 2 packs of Conflux, which we had won in 2HG prereleases.
Other materials: Mettler Toledo balance, with a precision of 100 ug (micrograms), powder-free latex gloves (to prevent nasty finger grease from skewing the readings)
Here's what we found:
Conflux packs (Nicol Bolas front):
P1: 29.3976 g
P2: 29.4498 g - perhaps the 50 mg difference indicates a foil?
Alara Reborn packs:
Veldaken Heretic front:
P1 - 28.9801 g
P2 - 28.9939 g
P3 - 29.0799 g - marked for opening
Slave of Bolas front:
P1 - 29.0766 g
P2 - 29.0936 g
P3 - 29.1664 g - marked for opening
Knotvine Paladin front:
P1 - 28.8611 g - marked for opening
P2 - 29.0989 g - marked for opening
P3 - 28.9792 g - marked for opening
As you can see, in the off chance the pack fronts greatly affect the weights, we grouped the packs by front art design to remove this variable.
We chose to open the heaviest pack from each group, and for the Knotvine Paladin packs, we opened all 3 because the spread between the packs was large enough that we were unable to determine whether the changes in weight were due to something aside from the cards, perhaps uneven cutting of the pack seals.
And now (drumroll), the contents:
Con P1 29.4498g - no foil, (leotau, temper, f. sage, squire, banquet, sylvan, s. slasher, gob outlander, tendrils, t. thallid, dsoul knight, m. mace, zoa, mountain, sap token, telemin) - we thought this was our surest best to have a foil, since it was so much heavier than the rest of the packs, but I guess crap weighs a lot. Not a bad limited pack though.
ARB P1, veld front, 29.0799 g - no foil, (singe, sureblade, recluse, soul manip, boon, outburst, grixis soj, ecaste knight, sunlight, magefire, stun snip, mage slay, tine, gob token, forest, fight to the death)
ARB P1, slave front, 29.1664 g - foil! (stormblade, deny real, brute, fieldmist post, ved ghoul, sig behemoth, outburst, grixis soj, ecaste knight, vengeful rebirth, flurry of wings, anathemancer, zombie wizard token, island, maelstrom pulse (!!), grixis soj FOIL) - we have a winner!
ARB P1, knotvine front, 28.9792 g - no foil (talon, grimblade, soul manip, pridemage, hackblade, carabid, offering to asha, firewild post, hushblade, sigil, ambush beetle, kathari rem, nulltread, thopter token, island, soulquake)
ARB P2, knotvine front, 29.0989 g - no foil (brute, fieldmist post, sewn eye, leech, might, bant soj, sigiled beh, eth abom, esper soj, ecaste, slave, nulltread, double neg, lizard token, island, identity crisis)
ARB P3, knotvine front, 28.8611 g - no foil (might, recluse, singe, deadshot, sunlight, breath, eth abom, thresher, dread, vengeful, plea, denial, rule card, plains, thought hem)
So of the 6 packs opened, we found one foil, and it happened to be the heaviest ARB pack that we opened, about 70 mg heavier than the next heaviest pack. The lightest pack that we opened had the rules card in it. While we're still at a loss to explain why the very heavy conflux pack didn't have a foil (aside from the fact that crap weighs a lot), it seems that there is a slight correlation between pack weight and the presence of a foil card, within sets. Interesting, no?
Of couse, we don't recommend that you buy a box, weigh every pack, and keep the supposed foil packs for yourself while your drafting friends or local storegoers just draft the regular packs. That would be dick.
My guess is that you're going to run into variance on two fronts: Cards of varying densities and Cards whose art requires more ink than others.
Your scale does seem sensitive enough to weigh a single card, so you could try to weigh the same card as a foil/non foil. Even if that is true it doesn't seem as though you could find foils based on weight if cards don't have a standard weight, seeing as your foil could easily be a card with heavier art.
I'd be curious to know the weight of the individual packs after the wrapper is removed.
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"Right about now I am wondering if Fredy Montero needed a kidney, how many guys in Seattle would line up to oblige?"
-- David Falk, Seattle Soccer Examiner, March 2009
I applaud you for the effort and the precision of your measurements, but I think you're failing to take something into account.
-Any two seperate card sheets will have a variance in the thickness of the ink, making two identical cards have different weights.
-Any two cards will have some variance in the exact dimensions, some will have more cardboard, some less.
-Any two pakcs will have some variance in the exact amount of wrapping that forms the pack.
These three things combined will generate a wild range of variance in the weight of packs. Such that you're very unlikely to be able to definitively identify a pack as "Yes" or "No" except at the far ends of the range of variance. Meaning, if you have 14 cards that received slightly less ink, and had were slightly overcut, in a pack that has slightly less wrapping material, a foil in it would result in the pack likely weighing in at the mean. Similiarly, if the cards are slightly overinked, slightly undercut, in a pack with slightly more wrapping material, you'll likely have a pack that weighs in greater than the mean.
People have actually been trying this method since Urza's Legacy. It's never been notably effective.
The truely dedicated might actually be able to identify packs with foils using an x-ray machine and low output though, in theory, the foil method should make those packs slightly more impenetrable to x-ray's and at the right setting, yield a hazy image instead of nothing. X-ray machines don't like metal objects very much, at the right setting, it should show.
Of course, at that point, all cost-benefit to identifying foils just got eaten up by the cost of the film...
To be honest I used to do this with an electronic scale to find foils in yu - gi - oh packs. It actually worked with those packs but i have had mixed results when trying it on magic packs
Now I'm just noodling around, but aren't foils an additional card in packs, on top of the land and rule/token card?
This would mean that there's a thickness difference between a non-foil and a foil pack.
Now, normally you probably couldn't expect to directly measure that difference, but if you had a set of three boosters of unknown contents:
- Place P1 directly beside P2, face-up, on a flat surface.
- Slide P3 laterally back and forth across the tops of P1 and P3, face-down. If there's any "catching", P1 or P2 contain a foil, because they are of different widths. You should be able to tell which is thicker simply by feel.
- If there's no catching, P1 and P2 have the same thickness; either both are foil, or neither is. Repeat the process by placing P1 beside P3, face-up, and sliding P2 laterally.
- If there's no catching still, all the packs are of the same width, and either all foil, or none are foil. One result is obviously more likely than the other. If there is catching, determine which of P1 and P3 are thicker by feel.
Or, would the smoothness of the foil wrapper and the tiny width difference of the one additional card make the process useless? I admit, I have absolutely zero desire to even attempt to try and verify the process in any way. As "valuable" as foils are, I really would prefer to stay true to the spirit of the process and just open packs!
Now I'm just noodling around, but aren't foils an additional card in packs, on top of the land and rule/token card?
This would mean that there's a thickness difference between a non-foil and a foil pack.
Now, normally you probably couldn't expect to directly measure that difference, but if you had a set of three boosters of unknown contents:
- Place P1 directly beside P2, face-up, on a flat surface.
- Slide P3 laterally back and forth across the tops of P1 and P3, face-down. If there's any "catching", P1 or P2 contain a foil, because they are of different widths. You should be able to tell which is thicker simply by feel.
- If there's no catching, P1 and P2 have the same thickness; either both are foil, or neither is. Repeat the process by placing P1 beside P3, face-up, and sliding P2 laterally.
- If there's no catching still, all the packs are of the same width, and either all foil, or none are foil. One result is obviously more likely than the other. If there is catching, determine which of P1 and P3 are thicker by feel.
Or, would the smoothness of the foil wrapper and the tiny width difference of the one additional card make the process useless? I admit, I have absolutely zero desire to even attempt to try and verify the process in any way. As "valuable" as foils are, I really would prefer to stay true to the spirit of the process and just open packs!
Actually, the foil replaces a common in the pack, so this method won't work.
I think trying to use the print order to find the chase rares in a box is more lucrative money-wise than trying to find foils. The chances of getting a foil worth anything are less than the chances of not finding the rare you were looking for with proven methods.
Anyways, I don't believe in packs for anything but drafting to begin with, I purchase/trade for what I want, and get rid of all the chance. And if you DO like packs, I thought all the fun was not knowing what you got (the fun being the huge odds/chances). Trying to get X amount of results seems to defeat the purpose of both...
Anyways, I don't believe in packs for anything but drafting to begin with
Agree with that. Thankfully, I play almost exclusively online, only playing in prerelease 2HG with my friend, which makes me not really value physical packs at all. So why not contribute them to science? I hope I can sell off the unopened packs and the pulse for some extra cash...
To test the idea of the sheets having different weights, I think I'll try weighing all the different Grixis Sojourners I got and seeing what the differences are. And if there's no big difference between the foil and the non-foils, I guess I can disprove the hypothesis and say it's impossible to detect them because variance in the sheet size/ink overweighs the weight of the foil coating.
I'm not 100% sure of the method although I have a few theories. This concept has intriqued me since one of the posters in the "cardwizard" thread said that he could pick foil packs from any regualar booster box with about 80% certainty in a few seconds without significanly messing with the packs or box. (IE scale or caliper).
Unfortunately I haven't come across a significant sample size of packs I was willing to open to test the theories I have.
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
To test the idea of the sheets having different weights, I think I'll try weighing all the different Grixis Sojourners I got and seeing what the differences are. And if there's no big difference between the foil and the non-foils, I guess I can disprove the hypothesis and say it's impossible to detect them because variance in the sheet size/ink overweighs the weight of the foil coating.
This is probably unnecessary, but make sure you account for there being 15 cards in the pack as well, a .002/card variance is statistically insignificant until you scale it, where it becomes a .03 variance which starts to get important.
I'm not 100% sure of the method although I have a few theories. This concept has intriqued me since one of the posters in the "cardwizard" thread said that he could pick foil packs from any regualar booster box with about 80% certainty in a few seconds without significanly messing with the packs or box. (IE scale or caliper).
I question if that's actually possible. There's no evidence of any significant weight difference that humans could detect without a device, the cards are not thicker, and I don't think it's possible to seperate the cards sufficiently to note any difference in friction.
In honesty, people having been searching for a way to identify packs with foils in them since inception. Weighing them, trying to feel them, I've seen people who've claimed they could tell which packs would have a foil by "Print run". I've never seen anyone who could do it though.
I honestly think this would be totally pointless, anyway. In Yugioh, foils tend to sell for a lot since they only come in foil. Even in Pokemon, only the rares are printed in foil. In Magic, most foils sell for about the price of a jank rare.
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Our study specimens were 9 packs of Alara Reborn and 2 packs of Conflux, which we had won in 2HG prereleases.
Other materials: Mettler Toledo balance, with a precision of 100 ug (micrograms), powder-free latex gloves (to prevent nasty finger grease from skewing the readings)
Here's what we found:
Conflux packs (Nicol Bolas front):
P1: 29.3976 g
P2: 29.4498 g - perhaps the 50 mg difference indicates a foil?
Alara Reborn packs:
Veldaken Heretic front:
P1 - 28.9801 g
P2 - 28.9939 g
P3 - 29.0799 g - marked for opening
Slave of Bolas front:
P1 - 29.0766 g
P2 - 29.0936 g
P3 - 29.1664 g - marked for opening
Knotvine Paladin front:
P1 - 28.8611 g - marked for opening
P2 - 29.0989 g - marked for opening
P3 - 28.9792 g - marked for opening
As you can see, in the off chance the pack fronts greatly affect the weights, we grouped the packs by front art design to remove this variable.
We chose to open the heaviest pack from each group, and for the Knotvine Paladin packs, we opened all 3 because the spread between the packs was large enough that we were unable to determine whether the changes in weight were due to something aside from the cards, perhaps uneven cutting of the pack seals.
And now (drumroll), the contents:
Con P1 29.4498g - no foil, (leotau, temper, f. sage, squire, banquet, sylvan, s. slasher, gob outlander, tendrils, t. thallid, dsoul knight, m. mace, zoa, mountain, sap token, telemin) - we thought this was our surest best to have a foil, since it was so much heavier than the rest of the packs, but I guess crap weighs a lot. Not a bad limited pack though.
ARB P1, veld front, 29.0799 g - no foil, (singe, sureblade, recluse, soul manip, boon, outburst, grixis soj, ecaste knight, sunlight, magefire, stun snip, mage slay, tine, gob token, forest, fight to the death)
ARB P1, slave front, 29.1664 g - foil! (stormblade, deny real, brute, fieldmist post, ved ghoul, sig behemoth, outburst, grixis soj, ecaste knight, vengeful rebirth, flurry of wings, anathemancer, zombie wizard token, island, maelstrom pulse (!!), grixis soj FOIL) - we have a winner!
ARB P1, knotvine front, 28.9792 g - no foil (talon, grimblade, soul manip, pridemage, hackblade, carabid, offering to asha, firewild post, hushblade, sigil, ambush beetle, kathari rem, nulltread, thopter token, island, soulquake)
ARB P2, knotvine front, 29.0989 g - no foil (brute, fieldmist post, sewn eye, leech, might, bant soj, sigiled beh, eth abom, esper soj, ecaste, slave, nulltread, double neg, lizard token, island, identity crisis)
ARB P3, knotvine front, 28.8611 g - no foil (might, recluse, singe, deadshot, sunlight, breath, eth abom, thresher, dread, vengeful, plea, denial, rule card, plains, thought hem)
So of the 6 packs opened, we found one foil, and it happened to be the heaviest ARB pack that we opened, about 70 mg heavier than the next heaviest pack. The lightest pack that we opened had the rules card in it. While we're still at a loss to explain why the very heavy conflux pack didn't have a foil (aside from the fact that crap weighs a lot), it seems that there is a slight correlation between pack weight and the presence of a foil card, within sets. Interesting, no?
Of couse, we don't recommend that you buy a box, weigh every pack, and keep the supposed foil packs for yourself while your drafting friends or local storegoers just draft the regular packs. That would be dick.
Your scale does seem sensitive enough to weigh a single card, so you could try to weigh the same card as a foil/non foil. Even if that is true it doesn't seem as though you could find foils based on weight if cards don't have a standard weight, seeing as your foil could easily be a card with heavier art.
-- David Falk, Seattle Soccer Examiner, March 2009
-Any two seperate card sheets will have a variance in the thickness of the ink, making two identical cards have different weights.
-Any two cards will have some variance in the exact dimensions, some will have more cardboard, some less.
-Any two pakcs will have some variance in the exact amount of wrapping that forms the pack.
These three things combined will generate a wild range of variance in the weight of packs. Such that you're very unlikely to be able to definitively identify a pack as "Yes" or "No" except at the far ends of the range of variance. Meaning, if you have 14 cards that received slightly less ink, and had were slightly overcut, in a pack that has slightly less wrapping material, a foil in it would result in the pack likely weighing in at the mean. Similiarly, if the cards are slightly overinked, slightly undercut, in a pack with slightly more wrapping material, you'll likely have a pack that weighs in greater than the mean.
People have actually been trying this method since Urza's Legacy. It's never been notably effective.
The truely dedicated might actually be able to identify packs with foils using an x-ray machine and low output though, in theory, the foil method should make those packs slightly more impenetrable to x-ray's and at the right setting, yield a hazy image instead of nothing. X-ray machines don't like metal objects very much, at the right setting, it should show.
Of course, at that point, all cost-benefit to identifying foils just got eaten up by the cost of the film...
Trade Thread
Quotes in blog.
This would mean that there's a thickness difference between a non-foil and a foil pack.
Now, normally you probably couldn't expect to directly measure that difference, but if you had a set of three boosters of unknown contents:
- Place P1 directly beside P2, face-up, on a flat surface.
- Slide P3 laterally back and forth across the tops of P1 and P3, face-down. If there's any "catching", P1 or P2 contain a foil, because they are of different widths. You should be able to tell which is thicker simply by feel.
- If there's no catching, P1 and P2 have the same thickness; either both are foil, or neither is. Repeat the process by placing P1 beside P3, face-up, and sliding P2 laterally.
- If there's no catching still, all the packs are of the same width, and either all foil, or none are foil. One result is obviously more likely than the other. If there is catching, determine which of P1 and P3 are thicker by feel.
Or, would the smoothness of the foil wrapper and the tiny width difference of the one additional card make the process useless? I admit, I have absolutely zero desire to even attempt to try and verify the process in any way. As "valuable" as foils are, I really would prefer to stay true to the spirit of the process and just open packs!
Actually, the foil replaces a common in the pack, so this method won't work.
Anyways, I don't believe in packs for anything but drafting to begin with, I purchase/trade for what I want, and get rid of all the chance. And if you DO like packs, I thought all the fun was not knowing what you got (the fun being the huge odds/chances). Trying to get X amount of results seems to defeat the purpose of both...
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Agree with that. Thankfully, I play almost exclusively online, only playing in prerelease 2HG with my friend, which makes me not really value physical packs at all. So why not contribute them to science? I hope I can sell off the unopened packs and the pulse for some extra cash...
To test the idea of the sheets having different weights, I think I'll try weighing all the different Grixis Sojourners I got and seeing what the differences are. And if there's no big difference between the foil and the non-foils, I guess I can disprove the hypothesis and say it's impossible to detect them because variance in the sheet size/ink overweighs the weight of the foil coating.
Unfortunately I haven't come across a significant sample size of packs I was willing to open to test the theories I have.
This is probably unnecessary, but make sure you account for there being 15 cards in the pack as well, a .002/card variance is statistically insignificant until you scale it, where it becomes a .03 variance which starts to get important.
I question if that's actually possible. There's no evidence of any significant weight difference that humans could detect without a device, the cards are not thicker, and I don't think it's possible to seperate the cards sufficiently to note any difference in friction.
In honesty, people having been searching for a way to identify packs with foils in them since inception. Weighing them, trying to feel them, I've seen people who've claimed they could tell which packs would have a foil by "Print run". I've never seen anyone who could do it though.