"The Demise of Posterboard" Topic

If you're making your own markers or counters for gaming, you need some material to make them out of. 3Dprinting seems a bit overkill, and wooden pieces are nice but not cost effective.

It used to be that you could just run down to Walmart, the local dollar store, or the local craft store and pick up a square-yard sheet of thick posterboard. However, a quick check of local stores reveals that foamboard has replaced thick posterboard in all of these places, and foamboard just isn't the same!

The stores still sell 'posterboard' but this is much thinner, too thin to use as markers.

I found Hobby Lobby sells 'book boards' (apparently for making your own book covers), which is almost too thick (not sure you can use scissors on it).

Of course, you can still scavenge cardboard from boxes, looking for solid and not corrugated cardboard, but it usually has printing on it already.

Head to your local printer for chipboard, or to the frame/artist shop for Bristol board.

Since I collect vintage movie lobby cards, when I get them from dealers/auctions, they come with the perfect thickness backing board for such things. Of course you don't really have any color choices but free is free.

I save old gift cards, membership cards, etc. and cut them into bases or markers. Easy-peasy.

Book boards are chipboard.

Hobby Lobby does sell Bristol Board, but it's more expensive (but larger) than book boards.

Contact a picture framing shop or the picture framing section in a Michael's or Hobby Lobby (both USA) to try and get some of their cast-off mat board pieces that are of no use to them for matting pictures.

Jim

Check out art stores for artists mounting board. In addition I use off-cuts from my local picture framer for basing 15mm figures.

I use beer mat, like Phil Barker told me to.

Salutations,

Find local picture framing shop and/or photographer.

Walk in sometime when you're the only customer. Smile. Ask if they could sell or donate scrap pieces of 'mounting board' for a 'kids' (or seniors' ;-) ) craft project'. Tell them you can check back next week if 'nothing on hand right now'.

(Worked for me)

Matt board words. I lived with an artist when I was young, and one thing that I got out of it was a big bag of pieces of black, white, and gray matt board. I have been using those pieces for counters as needed for many years.

You don't have to live with an artist, though. As others have noted, framing shops and photographers throw away the scraps which are useless to them but perfect for us.

I use comic book backing boards. They are cheap and nearly perfect thickness. You can get them at any comic book shop.

At the dollar store, I've found you can buy a sketch pad and the back of the pad is a useful, thick piece of cardboard.

(They don't sell pads of lined paper any more at the dollar store…)

Single sided counters I use linoleum floor tiles. The cheapest ones are under fifty cents for a foot square.

A third recommendation for mat board. The craft store most likely sells sheets of it somewhere in the framing section.

As far as scavenging goes, I've had good luck with the bulk pack of cereal (two regular bags in one bigger box) and oatmeal. I cook with oats and Kashi cereal a lot so even with just SWMBO and me (and the gaming gang once a month), we go through the bulk boxes at a reasonable rate.