Alex Hagedorn
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The 3 best ways to scan trading cards
There are many reasons players might track their collection: to search cards for deck building, to prepare to sell them online, or simply to watch their collection value drop as a steady flow of power creep and reprints apply downward pressure.
There are 3 ways to get your card data online, each with different strengths and weaknesses.
Most if not all services allow you to enter cards individually. With so many reprints, alternate arts and foil treatments it’s become pretty time-consuming to add all the details.
This process is enabled by smartphone cameras and image recognition.
With so many unique arts, this software is very accurate for identifying the right card name. If the card doesn’t share its art and frame with any other printings the scanner will probably be fine for identifying the set and collector id.
However, that’s about where the brilliance ends - it’s easily confused by cards with extreme similarity, such as “The List” cards where the main difference is a small symbol in the bottom left corner. It can’t tell if something is foil, or what condition it is, and some cards for whatever reason just don’t want to be scanned.
Still, if you’re adding a few cards, the simplicity is hard to beat. By adding in these details as you go, you can maintain a steady pace. We recommend a plain white background, then experiment with the lighting until things scan smoothly. Scanners can be thrown off by darkness or glare.
Manabox, Dragonshield and Delver Lens apps all allow card-scanning and export. If you’re choosing, check the pricing and figure out which interface you prefer - just because you can scan cards on your phone, doesn’t mean you can directly tinker with the list online.
For more than ~200 cards it's time to bring in the robots!
PhyzBatch-9000 and the Roca Sorter can scan and sort about 1000 cards in 2 hours. Maybe one day it will exceed that, but I’m not sure we should be overclocking machines that handle millions of dollars of cardboard, however safe they are normally.
The catch is the price - you’re likely spending $25,000 if you want one, which only makes sense for stores. But if you ask your LGS nicely, they might let you use it - some are already allowing their players to use their machines for a pretty reasonable fee.
Here's a list of stores with this service, please contact us to add yours!
