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Hi all,

I can't figure out the best way to scan these slabbed cards. Would these scans (ignoring orientation and cropping) be acceptable? The scanner has focused on the Topps Archives sticker and not the card itself so it's a bit blurry. But I'm not unslabbing the cards for scanning.

https://imgur.com/a/sGSSK1l

Not a lot of recent examples to go by for similar cards

Thanks!

They are too blurry and I would not accept them if I was in the Queue

I don't usually check the que anymore, but when I did I was pretty leniant more so than others.  However, I would have passed on these essentially letting someone else reject them.  The second one was a bit more crooked than even I would accept, and both seemed pretty blurry.  At first I thought they were pictures, but I would suggest trying to scan them again trying to find the best way to make them better.  I don't have a lot of experience scanning slabs, but with the straight edges I would lay them as up against one of the sides of the scanner bed so they could be as straight as possible. If the glare from the top of the scanner is making the cards blurry, maybe getting a dark sheet of construction paper might help, or leaving the scanner open.  Just try a few things and see if you get better results.

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I would tend to agree that I wouldn't accept the scans either, which is why I didn't upload and approve myself :)

As I mentioned, not concerned about the orientation/how crooked these scans are - just trying to get some acceptable quality.

Here are some more attempts based on your ideas:

https://imgur.com/a/oIcbctx

Will try some other things if I get the chance.

Also, the sticker obscures part of the card and makes the image "incomplete". The holder (and sticker) is not part of the card and is not needed to be documented here. (Clearer photos of the cards in the cases can be submitted to the Packaging area, if there aren't already good images there.)

It is virtually impossible to scan cards in a holder like that.  Scanners are intentionally designed to focus on the surface touching the glass (ie like a raw card), unless you tell it to focus on something above the glass, for example a negative in negative holder or a slide in a slide holder.  Unless you have a professional level scanner that allows you to adjust the focal distance, and you can figure out how much to adjust the focal distance, you will never get a scan of these kinds of cards where the card is in focus. 

I would certainly advise not taking the card out of the holder solely for the purpose of scanning an image of it for TCDB.  The Topps Archives sticker is part of the package and disrupting it devalues the package.  This is the same for Project 2020 cards and Project 70 cards.

Realistically, the only practical solution to submit an image of these cards which meets the TCDB standards for cropping that excludes the holder is to take a high quality photograph of the card in the holder and then crop the image to show only the card.  Of course the card photo Police might nuke the photo if they found out it wasn't a scan (they'd never be able to tell if done right).  

These are the kinds of situations where the TCDB standards need to be altered to allow photographs in some situations.  The rule against photographs prevents images of cards in holders and factory seals from being added to TCDB, even though this is how the manufacturer intended for the cards to be collected. It's the TCDB users loss, since these kinds of cards just can't be scanned.

To blurry and they are photos.

The card isn't slabbed. It's in a magnetic one-touch with a sticker on it to keep it closed during transit.

Please don't encourage members to submit images that are photos. Thank you.

That explains why a few in my stack keep sticking together at the stickers!