Scanning cards

[beanschat]

Hey all!

In order to more efficiently list cards for sale on ebay, etc, I recently purchased a new scanner. I am posting this thread, not only to help others if they decide to do the same, but also to get some feedback from others who may have found better ways to do it.

I find that a flatbed scanner is simply too slow to be able to economically scan cards, especially when it comes to scanning inexpensive cards. Spending a minute or two on each card is just too long. With this in mind I started looking at portable scanners...like the ones you see on TV where they scan business cards and such. They are fairly inexpensive ($100 and up) and more importantly, they scan cards flat, meaning the cards aren't fed at an angle bending the cards. I took into consideration the speed, price, and quality options of the scans.

Things I WISH I would have taken into consideration were dual side scanning, and print recognition. Of course, that would have led to a more expensive scanner, but I could have been found still fairly reasonably. The print recognition would have been nice to index the manufacturer, card number, and player name, however, with all the variations it would have been tough to pick up all that, but the time saved could have been huge again. Maybe I can find software that can still do that for me...

What I did end up with was the Magic Instascan from VuPoint. It was $100 and some of the things that I did like was it had a 7 pages per minute scan (for 8 1/2 x 11), three settings of the quality of the image, plus it allowed for scanning without the computer, meaning I could sit down in front of the TV and scan away without having to drag the bulky computer around as well.

I'll continue to add to this thread as I next take on the limited downfalls that I found, and best practices that I have put into place so far. I should have at least one more update today, maybe a few more. Please feel free to post your thoughts, tips, and ideas as we go.

Thanks!

Brian

[beanschat]

After busting the scanner from the packaging, it didn't take but a few minutes for me to be ready to scan cards. There are a few settings and the instructions are simple enough that if you follow them, you'll be all set, try and do it on your own though and it will take you a bit!

Scanning the cards was a breeze. Nice and fast. I was able to do a one sided scan in about 6 seconds. That includes feed time and not just scan time. The scans themselves were very nice quality...perhaps even too nice as sometimes the grain of the picture comes out a little too strong. The scanner does have a hi med lo setting, but that only applies when you are not plugged into the computer.

As mentioned earlier, this does have a stand alone feature meaning you can scan without another device being attached (computer). This was indeed very convenient and I was able to get about 800 one sided scans before the batteries started to die. This didn't seem unreasonable, but once again, when scanning quarter cards this is an expense to take into consideration. It seems to take a couple of times for me sync the scanner and the computer to upload the cards, but the aggravation of that is minimal as it is all plug and play. The option of scanning directly to your computer does alleviate the need for batteries. However, you are limited on your quality options of the scans..and by all means, remember to save them before you shut down the computer. The scan direct does not actually scan them directly to the computer! I learned that one the hard way by scanning 500 images then disconnecting only to find that they weren't on my computer when I went to index them....ugh!


In my next update, I will review some of the challenges I had with scanning the cards themselves, and the work arounds I have utilized in resolving those that I have been able to so far.

[beanschat]

Scanning the cards was obviously the biggest concern in the whole project. I was leary of scanning the cards without protection so I started out using penny sleeves. They did not work well. With the slickness of the sleeves themselves, there were a lot of instances of the cards slipping causing cards scanned at angles as well as the thinness of the sleeve causing the scanner to have a difficult time realizing that anything had been put in to scan. I decided this wouldn't be the best option.

Next, I got over my fear and took some commons and tried scanning them without protection. The scanner didn't have a problem recognizing the card being inserted so that resolved that problem. I looked at the cards to see if there was any damage done to the cards. Occasionally I picked up some light whiting on the corners, but these were not ever known to have not been there prior to scanning it. There was no creasing, dinged corners, or other concerns there. I was pleasantly surprised with those results. But, the scanner seems to not scan the entire card, cropping edges on the top and the right side. I was unsure if that was a result of white borders not being recognized, but losing 3 out of 4 corners was not an acceptable solution. In addition, cards with a heavy gloss again caused slippage in the scans.

Top loaders could have possibly resolved several of these issues, but they were too thick to reasonably feed into the scanner.

At this point, I considered returning the device and declaring it a failure and moving to a new device.

After a few hours though I considered an additional option. I took a index card, sharpied the border black, and taped a penny sleeve to it. This created a thicker border to help feed it and a good grip to feed through properly, and a dark border to for the scanner to pick up to start scanning. This had very good success. Though it obviously slowed down the process making me remove the card from the current holder and replacing it in this holder for front and back, then again returning it to the original holder. The scans of dark cards also seem to get lost. But on light cards, it looks pretty good. I also find that I have to change the penny sleeve on the card about every 100 scans as it develops lines across it that get picked up by the scanner. This obviously tells me that though damage to the cards wasn't noticeable when done without sleeves, it was there, so I am again concerned with that as an option.

So that is where I am at in this project. I have a solution that is workable. Though I would prefer a solution that would not require me to flip the card to scan both sides, I have found that the scanners are quite serviceable for cards and are much faster than flatbeds.


Do you have ideas or solutions that you find better? I would love to hear them!

[pwaldo]

Wouldn't you scan 9 cards at once on the flatbed scanner and then just crop the image to make individual images? That's what I do.

[beanschat]

I always found that to be a slow process, as well as inconvenient with having to sit at the scanner. I found the crop process took at least 15 minutes to scan, crop, and save the 9 cards. With this process I can get it down to about 4-5 minutes for 9 cards.

[beanschat]

I have made an additional change today. I have removed the taped sleeve and just replaced it with a rolled up piece of tape that I can attach the card with the sleeve to. Each sleeve gets scanned once with the card, no removing the card from one sleeve to another...and I am at 10 seconds per card to scan. I have dropped the back side scan for now.

[pwaldo]

I always found that to be a slow process, as well as inconvenient with having to sit at the scanner. I found the crop process took at least 15 minutes to scan, crop, and save the 9 cards. With this process I can get it down to about 4-5 minutes for 9 cards.

15 minutes seems like a really long time. Maybe try a handheld/wand scanner instead of a flatbed scanner? They appear to be cheap but I don't know how long they take to scan.

[roaddogg02316]

I try to avoid scanning stuff at all costs. Such a pain to throw 9 down on the scanner then pull them all up hoping not to ding a corner or something. But for me the more I can do at once the better.