HELP On postcard printing!--new guy not a printer however!

Hey Everyone,
I don't know where to post this, so I went to small format, here is what I am looking to do, my business needs on a weekly basis, 500-1000 postcards advertising different locations, and such...I have a guy that does all the design work and can do it in any DPI, I guess 300 is ideal...
Here is what I am asking ...

I am paying $100-150 per run of postcards per week sometimes more for promoting our event company, I have a guy that does the graphic part of it, but doesn't print...
If I want to print these at my office, what would you suggest?...I am not against spending money on the right machine that will print 2 sided 4x6 postcards and also posters like an 11x17 or 13x19 is plenty big!!!---so that is all I am using it for, but I am doing like 500 at a shot, so I need something that does it quick, also what do I use to cut the cards?
PLEASE help!---I think I can just do this at my office versus turn around time with printers, and shipping, and various other things...my printers can't keep up with half my demand!...
So in short I need something that prints quickly and then what to cut the postcards with...Thanks a bunch!---also if you have a good source for postcard 14pt stock and paper for posters (like what you would see for a bar poster)
Thanks

 

As far as cutting the best cutters are hydraulic. You can't afford one of these yet

Next are electric programmable - so you can just type in the dimension, hit go, the backgauge moves to position, and you hit the cut button to both lower the clamp and make the cut really quickly and without effort. These go for about $5500 new or $3000 used and are really handy to have.

Cheaper than that and you have semi-automatic where you have to dial in dimensions manually, but the cut is still electric.

And cheapest you have manual guillotine cutters. These would be fine for doing 500 to 1000 postcards at a time, but for anything larger can get quite jarring to use (and are somewhat unprecise in that they are too small usually to hold the stock really square.)

There are also card slitters, but a guillotine gives you a lot more flexibility to do different sizes and jobs.

 

As far as printing, I would say it would be extremely difficult to do this type of volume on any inkjet currently in the market. The only way to do it economically would be to use very cheap bulk generic ink as OEM ink would drive you bankrupt quickly. Even then coated inkjet stock is expensive compared to stock coated for offset or laser use, and the speed and durability of small or art inkjet printers is not up to the task so they would wear out quickly.

The problem with lasers is that only the current generation of color copiers / laser printers is really up to the task of printing heavy stock like 12pt or 14pt, and these are going to set you back around $30,000 to $40,000 to give you near-offset-quality print quality (if not quite offset-quality gloss finish gloss evenness, where your current offset printed postcards probably have a uv or aq coating applied uniformally over the ink surface for perfect gloss or where the ink gives a slightly more natural ink on matte finish than the toner which sits on top).

You could buy an off-lease xerox 240 or 250 or imagepress c1 used model for around $10,000 but then you are taking a risk as getting or fixing a major part can set you back a lot without the security of a maintenance and supplies contract. The only affordable printer I know of that can print this heavy weight day in and day out is a xante illumina, but the print cost of this machine is relatively high, 3x to 6x the cost per print of a xerox, canon, or konica minolta, and the quality isn't as high as docucolor or imagepress c1 quality - it's consistent but a bit harsher and less natural and smooth on photo printing to my eye.

 

I am not sure about getting into printing business just to do a few postcards. The knowledge, labor, maintenance, purchasing of the paper, ink, and all other chores that goes with the task is way beyond what you are trying to do. Use a printer and pay the money, and use your valuable time to make more money, or what you do best. I can suggest a printer who does all ours at a very reasonable price and ON TIME, so they do not get overwhelmed with jobs and forget about you. Check them out at wymprint.com. After considering only the time you save, you'll be way ahead in the long run.

 

Printing postcards

Some words of wisdom for printing good quality color postcards without going broke: try CISS (continuous ink supply system). It's ideal for high-quality and inexpensive printing of colored texts and photos; even black-and-white text is cheaper than with a laser printer! Printing personal photos is cheaper than in a photo studio (ink costs $0.02 per photo). For office use: pricelists, booklets, offers, schedules and diagrams printing. A color copy of an А4-format page costs app. $0.01, whereas in printing centers it costs app. $2-7. For professional printing: СISS with high-quality ink and ICC-profiles gives 95-97% quality, compared to original materials. The cost is 20 times less, see inksystem.org for more info and eshop is available at *************. Ink for refilling is also available in refilling kits or as separate color flasks.