Dragon Shield Sealable Inner Sleeves Review
4 minute read
The Dragon Shield Perfect Fit Sealable Inner Sleeves are a game changing offering by the popular manufacturer, being the first Inner Sleeve to feature a sealable mechanism, and offering maximum protection for your most prized cards. Is this a much needed innovation or double-sleeving overkill? How do they compare to extra thick inner sleeves and other alternatives available in 2023? Let’s find out.
Table of Contents
What are the Dragon Shield Sealable Inner Sleeves?
The Sealable Inner Sleeves are an innovative product by Dragon Shield, featuring an extra flap which is tucked into the sleeve pouch to fully enclose the card. This design ensures that no edge of the card is exposed unlike with a regular inner sleeve.
The sleeves are made with 50 micron thick polypropylene, meaning 150 microns of thickness around a fully wrapped card. The added thickness is significant as it can prevent a fully sleeved deck from fitting into some deck boxes. To see exactly which deck boxes will support the Dragon Shield Sealables, visit our Ultimate Double-Sleeving Guide.
The Sealable sleeves come in Standard size (63mm x 88mm) for Pokemon and MTG, as well as Japanese size (59mm x 86mm) for Yugioh and other small cards. What’s more, the Dragon Shield Sealables also come in a smoke-backed version for players who need to make sure their card backs are completely hidden. In this review we’ll be focusing on the Standard size sleeves but much of what we find will be applicable to both.
The Dragon Shield Sealable sleeves come in a handy smoke-backed version, designed to fix any opacity issues with your outer sleeve of choice.
How strong are the seams?
To test the strength of the seams, we do a simple stretch test in which we pull the front and back of the sleeve apart to see how much effort is required to split them. The Sealables were average in this test and the seams are about as strong as we would expect from a thin inner sleeve.
What’s more concerning is 3 of the sleeves split on us while sleeving up a 100-card deck. With only 1 spare in the pack, this can pose a real problem. We would advise being extra careful when sleeving the cards and to try not to catch against the corners of the sleeves at a bad angle. This is definitely not ideal, earning a weak 3/10 for seam strength.
How well do they double-sleeve?
To see how well the Dragon Shield Sealable sleeves double-sleeve, we combine them with 13 different outer sleeves, leading to 1300 double-sleeving attempts. We then count how many times the card slips out of the inner sleeve when being pushed into the outer sleeve (a bad fit).
Unsurprisingly, the very nature of the Sealables makes it extremely difficult for the card to be forced out of the inner sleeve, no matter how tight the fit is into the outer sleeve. As a result, all 1300/1300 attempts were successful and easy.
More importantly, the Sealables fit around the card very well, without applying any pressure. The added thickness of the Sealable sleeves can lead to a tight fit with some outer sleeves but without risk of bending the card. A perfect 10/10 for double-sleeving.
The Sealable sleeves have an additional flap which tucks neatly into the pocket for a wonderful fit around the card.
How clear are the Dragon Shield Sealable sleeves?
Both the regular Sealable sleeves and the smoke-backed sleeves have perfectly clear fronts. You will have no issue displaying your shiniest foils in them. 10/10 Clarity.
Will the Sealables keep your cards safe?
In order to see how secure the Sealable inner sleeves are, we double-sleeved a handful of cards and then submerged them in a bowl of water for 10 seconds. As the entire purpose of the Sealables is to make sure the card inside is completely closed off to air and liquids, absolutely no water can make it to the card for these sleeves to be fit for use.
After removing the sleeves from the water, they are carefully patted dry and un-sleeved. We were then glad and relieved to find that the Sealables did their job well and the water had no real chance of reaching the card. As with our other water tests, the water struggles to make it halfway down the outer sleeve, nevermind all the way to the bottom and all the way up the inner sleeve as well.
How much do they cost?
In the UK, the RRP of the Dragon Shield Sealable inner sleeves is £6.49 for a pack of 100. We currently sell them in our store for £5.95 but prices will vary depending on your location and vendor.
Closing thoughts
The Dragon Shield Sealable sleeves do exactly what they are designed to do by offering unrivalled protection for the cards inside. While their added security benefits are undeniable, in almost every scenario, a regular inner sleeve is just as effective. Whether they are worth the extra cost to you will depend on the value and sentiment of the cards in question.
For us, the areas of concern are how easy the sleeves are to split. If you are looking to sleeve up a 100 card deck, you may need to invest in 2 packs just to be sure. Furthermore, the added thickness of the Sealable inner sleeves means that decks will pile high on the gaming table and may struggle to fit into your favourite deck box.
Even so, the Sealables remain our top pick for those looking to go the extra mile for their cards. We much prefer them over any of the new ‘extra thick’ inner sleeves which are overly tight, and more likely to bend and damage the cards than protect them. After all these years, the Gamegenic Closable sleeves are the first product to provide any serious competition to the Sealables and are essentially the same sleeve but in a horizontal orientation. You can read our review of them here, but we feel the top-loading Dragon Shield Sealables still have a slight edge overall.
| Card Fit | Regular |
| Seam Strength | 3/10 |
| Double-sleeving | 10/10 |
| Clarity | 10/10 |
| Water Test | ✔️ - Pass |
| Price (Standard) | £6.49 |
If you are still unsure, then consider checking out our easily digestible Sleeve Comparison Tool.
Double Sleeved was founded in 2019 by Andrew and Jon, two lifetime card game enthusiasts with the goal of providing amazing prices, service, and creating helpful content for the community. Today, we are one of the best rated TCG stores on Trustpilot with 98% of customers giving us a perfect 5 stars!
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