Digitize your football trading cards quickly and easily

Football is one of the world’s most popular games — and for good reason. Families come together to watch their favorite teams play on Sundays. Kids and adults alike collect their favorite players with trading cards. And almost anyone can step out into the yard or the street and toss a ball around.

Globally, the NFL has more than 410 million fans, and many of those fans collect trading cards. You may be new to the hobby or maybe you discovered a box of old football cards in your attic. Either way, you might be looking for ways to organize and sell your card collection. Now is the best time to get started with scanning football cards.

“Whether you want to capitalize on the activity in the football card market or are simply looking for a better way to organize your football cards, using a football card scanner to digitize your cards is an effective way to get a high-quality image and reduce physical handling,” said Don Caruso, Head of Inside Sales and Sales Operations at PFU America.

With digital images, you can share and sell your football cards digitally while the cards themselves rest comfortably in their protective sleeves. But scanning your football cards requires a little more finesse than scanning a paper document. Choosing the right scanner for handling precious cards is worth taking the time to get right.

To that end, we’ve prepared the following tips for how to scan football cards and what to look for in a football 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.

Football card scanner types

There are three main types of football card scanners: flatbed scanners, automatic document feeder (ADF) scanners, and overhead scanners. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, and each will give you a perfectly good scan of your football cards.

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.

• Flatbed scanners: As the name suggests, flatbed scanners feature a large, flat scanning surface. You simply place what you intend to scan on the glass scanning surface, close the lid, and let the scanner do the rest. Most flatbed scanners expose cards to no moving parts, which makes them a solid choice if you want to scan football cards that are graded in a protective case. For raw, ungraded cards, however, an ADF scanner, like the RICOH fi-8170 is more efficient.
• ADF Scanners: ADF scanners feature a mechanism that moves the document through the machine and across the scanning surface. The best ADF scanners for scanning football cards will have a straight path. This will allow you to scan your cards without them bending or being damaged. Avoid belt-fed or U-shaped path scanners.
• Overhead scanners: These scanners allow you to scan without the document coming into contact with moving parts. They utilize sensors to capture digital images of objects beneath them. They can also be used to scan graded cards.

Features to look for in a football card scanner

Many scanners can scan documents at a higher quality than you actually need for digitizing your football card collection. This leaves a few other important features to look for.

• Glare reduction: Scanners with glare reduction will help you get clearer images, even with glossy cards. You can also reduce glare by scanning in natural daylight and avoiding bright light sources near your scanner.
• Database compatibility: Ensure your scanner is compatible with the software you use to process and organize your cards. This will allow you to automatically enter your cards into the database as you scan them.
• Networking options: Your scanner should come with the correct options for connecting to your computer or network, whether that’s ethernet, Wi-Fi, or USB.

How to scan football cards

Once you’ve selected the right scanner, follow these tips for getting great scans of your football cards.

Did You Know?:PCMag called the RICOH fi-8170, formerly known as Fujitsu fi-8170, “the state of the document-scanning art”. Read more here.

Prepare your cards

First, you will want to prepare your cards for scanning. Taking a moment to clean and prepare your cards will help ensure you get the clearest image.

Start by properly handling your cards. Avoid touching the fronts or backs, and use nitrile gloves when handling especially delicate cards. Be careful with the corners and edges, too. Damage to these can degrade the value of your card and make them less attractive.

Next, you will want to gently clean your cards with a microfiber cloth. Avoid paper towels — they can leave debris behind and possibly scratch your cards. Also avoid liquid solvents if at all possible. These can damage your cards and lower their grade. Use solvents only as a last resort.

Some people use a solution similar to glasses cleaner but do so sparingly. Do not soak your cards. In practice, a simple wipedown is sufficient to remove smudges and fingerprints.

Finally, store cleaned cards in a protective plastic sleeve.

Football card scanner settings

These scanner settings will help you get the best images of your cards:

• DPI: Choose a DPI of 300 for the best balance between image quality and file size. For most online applications, 300 DPI is the sweet spot.
• File Type: Saving your image as a .JPG or .PNG will give you a good, clear image without creating too large of a file. Images saved as .PNG files tend to be of higher quality but are also larger, so you might want to decide if saving space or having the best-looking image is more important.
• File name: See if your scanning software allows you to set file name prefixes automatically so you can scan multiple cards at once without manually changing the file names later. Aside from that, be sure to name your images in a way that will allow you to find the ones you want quickly.

Our recommendation: RICOH fi-8170

Whether you plan to sell your football cards online or simply want to create a digital inventory of your cards so that you can safely store your physical cards away from dust, dirt, or damage, a scanner will help you achieve your goals without damaging your card collection.

We know that those in the market for a football 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.

The RICOH fi-8170 color document scanner, with its straight-feed automatic document feeder is a great choice for card collectors looking to digitize their collections. Its fast, 70 page per minute scanning rate will make short work of digitizing your cards. And its color LCD panel makes configuring and adjusting settings easy. 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.