How to Care for Metal Tokens (Steel, Brass, and Card Stock)

Metal tokens are built to be handled. That is the whole point of putting art on a steel plate instead of a piece of paper. Still, the three finishes we print age differently, and a few minutes of knowing what to do keeps a set looking like the day it shipped.

Short version: a dry cloth handles almost everything, and the only real mistakes are abrasives and solvents.

Everyday cleaning

Brushed steel. Wipe along the grain with a soft dry cloth, the kind that comes with glasses or a camera lens. For something sticky, dampen the cloth with water, wipe, then dry it right away. The brushed satin finish hides smudges well, which is why it is the easiest of the three to live with.

Brass finish. Same routine, with one difference: the brass plates are polished and sealed under lacquer, so they take fingerprints more readily than the brushed steel does. A dry microfiber pass clears them. Because the lacquer is the protective layer, treat it the way you would treat a guitar's finish rather than bare metal.

Card stock. These are real cards, so care for them like cards. Sleeve the ones you play often, keep them out of direct sun, and rely on the fact that a five-pack means spares.

What to avoid

• Abrasive pads and scouring powders. They will dull the brushed grain on steel and cut straight through the lacquer on brass. There is no way back from either.
• Solvent cleaners. Acetone, nail polish remover, and hard household degreasers attack cured ink and lacquer. Water on a cloth is genuinely enough.
• The dishwasher. Heat plus detergent plus a long soak is the one combination we would not put a printed plate through.
• Metal polishes. Polish is designed to remove a thin layer of the surface. On a printed card, that surface is the art.

The ink itself is the durable part. UV-cured ink is bonded and hardened onto the plate rather than sitting on top like a sticker, which is what lets these survive normal table handling in the first place. Our UV printing guide covers how that works.

Storage between games

Metal tokens do not need sleeves. They are cut to standard trading card size, 2.5 x 3.5 inches, deburred and corner-rounded to the same radius as a normal card, so they sit happily in a deck box alongside sleeved cards without catching on anything.

Two habits worth having:

• Store them flat. Complete metal sets ship in a fitted foam tray inside the gift box, and that tray is the best home they will ever have. Keep it.
• Do not stack metal face to face under weight. Two polished surfaces pressed together in a bag for a month is the one scenario that can leave a mark. A tray, a slot, or a single sleeve between them solves it.

If you carry tokens loose in a dice bag, one sleeve each is cheap insurance, purely so they are not grinding against dice.

Brass, tarnish, and time

Ordinary brass tarnishes. These do not behave that way, because the plate is a brass finish sealed under lacquer rather than raw brass left open to the air. That seal is what you are maintaining when you keep polishes and solvents away from it.

If a brass token ever looks dull, it is almost always skin oil rather than the metal changing. Dry cloth, along the surface, and it comes back.

If something goes wrong

Every order is covered by a 30-day money-back guarantee. If a card turns up damaged or the print is defective, send a photo and we will remake it free. That covers manufacturing problems rather than a token that met a scouring pad, so when in doubt, start with the dry cloth.