Trading Card Glossary › Card Types & Rarity
Printing Plate
Also known as: Plate, CMYK Plate, Press Plate
A printing plate is one of the actual metal plates used in the four-color printing process (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black — CMYK) to produce a card. Each card requires four plates, one per color. Printing plates are always 1-of-1 and are inserted into packs as special inserts. They are unique in that they are not cards in the traditional sense — they are the actual tools used to print the cards — making them truly one-of-a-kind manufacturing artifacts that collectors prize highly.
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