The basketball trading card hobby has moved online, and you need the right scanner to handle the task
The digital age hasn’t slowed down sports cards trading, but it has moved the practice online. This poses a significant challenge for hobby shop owners, collectibles dealers, and enthusiasts alike: What’s the best way to digitize these beloved and often valuable physical artifacts? This is where high-quality scanners come into play. In this article, we’ll explore how to find the perfect basketball card scanner.
Need help picking the perfect scanner for your whole inventory? Check out our guide, Preserving History: The Value of a Sports Card Scanner.
Why use a basketball card scanner?
Getting a single trading card online used to be a laborious process. It went something like this: get the card, take individual photos of it, upload them to your computer, crop and edit them, get the correct info for the card, then finally post it all online for sale (assuming your picture quality is good enough). The right basketball card scanner and software can cut that time down to an instant.
“The perfect basketball card scanner will help you leverage online channels to reach a wider audience and improve sales performance,” said Don Caruso, Head of Inside Sales and Sales Operations at PFU America. What’s more, you can do it all without having to spend days hunched over your desk! The perfect scanner will preserve and protect your basketball cards while also helping get them into collectors’ hands faster.
Did You Know?TMC named the RICOH fi-8170 as a Future of Work Product of the Year. TMC recognizes "companies that showcase the most innovative and disruptive products and solutions that have positively supported hybrid work experiences across the globe." Click here to learn more.
5 features to look for in a basketball card scanner
What’s the real game changer for collectibles professionals? Choosing the right scanner for your trading card needs. Here are the five most important features to look for in your new basketball card scanner.
Resolution and image quality
If you’re reading this, chances are image quality is at the top of your list. You know you can’t just take photos of your cards with a smartphone to create a compelling listing. Selling scanned basketball cards requires high-resolution and high-fidelity images. Look for a scanner with powerful image processing, high DPI, and color-matching capabilities.
Image correction tools
Even the most advanced scanners sometimes produce raw image files with blips. But when your scanner offers automatic image correction tools, you’ll never know those blips were there. Look for scanning software that automatically corrects common issues like glare and discoloration. That way, every card you scan will look as pristine in its digital form as it does in person.
Flexible paper handling
Different types of basketball cards can vary in size and thickness. A basketball card scanner can also do double duty for other types of sports cards, like hockey cards and baseball cards. That's why flexible paper handling is such an important feature. Whether you have a standard NBA Hoops card or a thick relic card, you need a scanner that can handle them all while keeping each card safe.
Simple image upload
Scanning should be as easy as putting the card in the tray, pressing scan, and receiving a high-quality image of the card’s front and back. It should be just as easy to upload those images, since the last thing you want is for those images to gather digital dust somewhere in a forgotten folder on your computer. Make sure your basketball card scanner seamlessly connects to popular digital platforms. That will ensure your images are easy to use wherever you need them.
Easy file organization
Software integrations are the next level of operational efficiency with scanners. They ensure that scanned cards can automatically appear in your sales database, complete with their year, set, card number, and player name. Otherwise, you’d need to manually find relevant information about cards and organize them one by one. These massive time savings are a big part of why it’s so important for basketball card scanners to connect with the sales tools or software platforms you already use.
Did You Know?Leading trading card software company, Collx, calls the fi-8170 “by far the best scanner for sports cards”. See how it integrates seamlessly with their AI-powered database system here.
Our recommendation: Ricoh fi-8170 Desktop Scanner
Those in the market for a basketball card scanner have no shortage of options. We take great pride in having spent the last 50+ years researching, designing, and developing some of the most advanced and powerful electronics in the world, including our professional grade fi and SP series of scanners.
Built to purpose for the most demanding document handling jobs, fi and SP scanners are capable of processing tens of thousands of pages per day at the highest levels of accuracy. Their intuitive integration capabilities with all existing work suites minimize time-to-value for businesses looking to invest in tools that will pay dividends for years to come.
We recommend the fi-8170 as an ideal basketball card scanner. It scans up to 70 cards per minute, and double-sided capture maximizes every second. The fi-8170 offers superior 600 DPI image quality and is backed by our Clear Image Capture technology. A range of exceptional paper handling options allows you to tackle any basketball or sports card and its accessories too. Plus, the PaperStream software suite is packed with advanced features such as image enhancement, optical character recognition, software integrations, and more. Click here to learn more or shop the rest of our production scanner line.
Note: Information and external links are provided for your convenience and for educational purposes only, and shall not be construed, or relied upon, as legal or financial advice. PFU America, Inc. makes no representations about the contents, features, or specifications on such third-party sites, software, and/or offerings (collectively “Third-Party Offerings”) and shall not be responsible for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of such Third-Party Offerings. Please consult with a licensed professional regarding your specific situation as regulations may be subject to change.
