I've made a few custom investigators, ancient ones, but haven't really dabbled in allies, items, spells, and monsters because I can't make the smaller cards look authentic and be able to hide it in my deck.

Is there a printer that I can send my custom content and have look authentic? How much would it cost?

I realize that it would be cheaper to do it myself, and it may not be worth it, but I'm curious.

If someone from Fantasy Flight can answer (I don't know if you're allowed or not), and I could find out about their printer, that'd be great.

I know this is somewhat of a long shot, but speculation hasn't gotten me any closer to finding a good solution.

Please, if you want to reply with a "Why don't you do this other thing instead?", keep in mind that that is rarely helpful. I would like to pursue the feasibility of this avenue. Thank you.

Aside from using FFGs printer I don't think it's possible to get exact matches in existing decks. If you want to mix custom content into those decks you are best off using sleeving the cards and slipping some paper copies of the custom stuff in identical sleeves. Now if you are going to make decks of cards you don't intend on mixing with the others you can use Artscow. They have a few good options for custom decks.

I, too, was interested in printing my custom content to be as close as possible to the existing content. I called FFG to ask if they could give me the exact measurements of their cards and paper weights, but was informed that that is proprietary information. Apparently, there are a lot of game counterfeiters out there. So, aside from calling them and asking if they will print it for you (pretty infeasible if you ask me) I do not think there is much you or I can do. But if you do find something or someplace that comes close, please let me know.

Veet said:

Veet, would you care to go into any further detail about how to use Artscow to get nice looking Arkham cards? Is it possible to print investigator and ancient one sheets with Artscow?

Copied from my reply at BGG...

I don't think you're likely to find the information of FFG's printing source, or, even less likely, the chance that they would do a few small components for you. Most places that print the magnitude of cards and components that FFG requires (i.e., hundreds of thousands) don't bother with one-off low count stuff.

Artscow recently added smaller size cards to what they offer... I don't think they're a match for the AH item/ally cards, though, but they're close.

What I think may be your best option is:

1) Make the cards and monsters best you can, using Artscow for the cards and heavy stock paper or sticker paper on wood squares for the monsters.

2) Buy an extra AH game, or even an extra one of the small box expansions that includes enough of what you need. You can get a good quality used AH base game from the BGG marketplace for only $25.

3) Using a very distinctive colored marker, mark the cards/monsters with the name of the matching custom component, or put a small or thin sticker label on them with the name of the custom component.

When you draw one of the cards or monsters that is marked, retrieve the corresponding card/monster from your custom ones and insert it into the game. At that point, they won't match the other components entirely, but it shouldn't matter at all for the cards, as at that point they're just face-up among the rest of the items, anyway. And there are ways to make the monsters look good enough so they'll look fine on the board. (I've made some decent looking monsters using sticker paper and some wood squares I found at Michael's craft store.) But the important thing is that it will be completely seamless in terms of drawing the monsters from the bag or drawing the cards from the deck... you won't know when you're drawing one of the custom cards or monsters.

Musha Shukou said:

They cannot do investigator sheets or GOOs, but they do a great job with cards. I've used them a number of times now for various things, including several AH card sets (that are not intended to match existing AH cards). They are standard playing card size, so they do not match the proportion of AH cards, but they're in the neighborhood of the larger cards (Mythos, encounter, etc.). When making encounter cards, I use a black background set at 2.75" wide by 3.75" tall and then paste the card image from Strange Eons into that. It leaves extra black on the sides, but still looks and works good. For the smaller cards (Allies, items, etc.), I would stretch them out a little bit to fill the card space better. But apparently now Artscow also offers smaller sized cards. Again, they will not match the smaller AH cards, but they would be closer. I think those are 2" x 2.75". I'll probably redo some of the smaller cards I've made using that size.

You can make a deck of 54 cards that all has the same back, or a deck with completely different backs for different cards ("multi-purpose cards").

Actually, hold on... I just checked their site and they offer "photo cards" that are 5"x7", which I believe is the exact size for investigators and GOOs: http://www.artscow.com/photo-gifts/collage/photo-cards-320 Hmm, I may have to try some of those with my next order and see how they turn out. I'm guessing the texture of that will be more like photo paper than the type of thick card stock that the AH stuff is printed on, but it'll probably look good, regardless. They're pretty cheap, too... you could get 10 done for about $5 and 50 done for about $20. And invariably at certain times of the year they offer specials on different types of items, so I'd suggest signing up for their e-mail alerts.