A card seal with an annular arrangement of cards that form the card seal, where the cards are interweaved and staggered to increase a sealing capability of the cards. The card seal is formed from leading edge cards staggered with trailing edge cards, and the cards have a thicker outer end and a thinner inner end where the interweaving occurs. Because of the varying thickness of the staggered cards, each card has a taper on the lower outer end that decreases from a high to a low on the inner side in order that a foot print for the card is constant across the bottom surface that floats on the rotating part.