Materials
316L or titanium
Titanium is lighter, warmer in colour and roughly half as stiff as steel. That last part matters more than the brochures suggest.
· 5 min
Titanium reads as the premium option, and it costs like one. Whether it is the better card depends on which properties you actually care about — and one of them usually gets quoted backwards.
The numbers
| 316L stainless | Grade 2 titanium | |
|---|---|---|
| Density | ≈ 7.99 g/cm³ | ≈ 4.5 g/cm³ |
| Young's modulus | ≈ 200 – 210 GPa | ≈ 110 – 120 GPa |
| Weight, 85.6 × 54 × 0.8 mm | ≈ 29.5 g | ≈ 16.6 g |
| Relative stiffness | reference | about half |
| Corrosion | excellent | outstanding |
| Our surcharge | — | +60 € |
The thing that gets stated backwards
You will read that titanium is lighter than steel at the same stiffness. The first half is right and the second is not. Titanium is around forty-four per cent less dense, but its Young's modulus is roughly half that of stainless — so at identical thickness a titanium card is both lighter and noticeably more flexible.
For an aircraft bracket you compensate by making the part thicker, and you still come out ahead on weight. For a card constrained to 0.8 mm by the ISO format, you cannot. The flex is simply part of the object.
Lighter, yes. Stiffer, no. A titanium card gives where a steel one holds.
Which one to pick
Choose 316L if you want the card to feel solid and stay dead flat in a wallet, if you want mirror or PVD-black finishes, or if you would rather put the sixty euros into the packaging. It is the default for a reason.
Choose titanium if the moment you care about is the one where somebody picks it up. Half the weight of steel at the same size is genuinely surprising in the hand, and the warmer grey is unlike anything else in a wallet. Accept that it flexes, and that mirror polish is not on the menu.