After a dozen or more trades, some eBay purchases and a generous "starter package" from Janice O'Neal, I'm sorting and examining my overnight collection. I haven't gotten hold of the Lamb/Wells book on slot cards yet (does anyone have one for sale?), so I'm wondering about variations. As I'm sorting, I'm keeping one of each variation that I find, but I'm not sure about a couple of areas:

1. Color shading. If one card seems virtually identical to another except for the intensity of the color and the darkness of the black printing on the reverse, do you consider it a variation? The examples I'm thinking of look like the card stock was definitely produced in two different runs, the color levels vary so much. But, the colors aren't different, just brighter.

2. Application of player's name. If you have four cards that are identical except for the fact that on the first the player's name is applied to the surface with gold lettering, the next has the name printed on the surface in green lettering that matches the card's colors, the third has the name embossed in raised letters and the fourth has the name printed on a clear plastic tape applied to the front of the card, do you consider any of these as variations? I know we'll be seeing more and more variation in name application as casinos all across the country start using the same cards (MGM/Mirage, Harrah's, etc). And, it looks like there are enough variations without getting nit-picky about how the name is applied. I'm just wondering what the "real" card collectors think.