Alternate Way to Display Your Cards
 

Not sure if this is a new idea or not, but I don't recall reading about anyone turning their scanned card images into a book. Lots of people are doing this with family photos, so I figured I'd give it a shot with baseball cards. Just threw together an 8 x 8 book. Following are a few pics. In person the print quality is top notch, but the background color I chose is not the best, and creates a pseudo-metallic effect when the light hits it a certain way. I'm very happy for a first try at it.

The standard Topps cards are actual size in the book. Some others are tweaked, like the cover (obviously). Let me know what you think, and if anyone else has done this I'd love to see some pics (and steal some ideas).

http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/z.../bookcover.jpg

http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/z...1k22/book3.jpg

http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/z...1k22/book2.jpg

http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/z...1k22/book1.jpg

http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/z...2/bookback.jpg

I think it is really cool. How did you do it?

Pretty cool Dean.
What company?
Was their software easy to use?
I've seen photobooks made through Lulu.com and Blurb.com but never tried them myself.

Dean, that is awesome...such a creative idea! I wonder if you could have even taken those scanned images to Costco or even Walmart and have them put together an album. Perhaps you may not get the same level of customization but could be another alternative although nice to be able to do this "in-house."

We use Blurb for all of our photos now, never for my cards though. That looks like a good idea for displaying and sharing your cards.
RC

Thanks Jon. I put the book together through AdoramaPix.com. There are lots of places on the net to make them though. I've used Snapfish and Shutterfly for family photo stuff with nice results, but Adorama is a step or more above, with better print quality and nice layflat book design.

You just need decent res scans, upload them to the site, then use book tool to organize and arrange however you like. Very easy, and you can totally customize it.

Here's a link to Adorama's photo book page: Link (I have no affiliation with Adorama, BTW, just impressed with their product)

very cool!

This is a great idea. We've used Snapfish for family photo albums of special events like Christmas, vacations, spring training, etc., and it's very easy to use and fun to do your own book.

I love how you used the backs of cards for the back cover - great look.

Thanks for the positive comments everyone. And really, this is easy to do, and there are lots of places that can do it. Not sure about the Wal-Mart/Costco option as I've never gotten pics at either, but I'd guess they do something similar as well.

Holy Cow. I'm actually doing something similar right now through Shutterfly. Beautiful way to show off the collection. A coffee table book about coffee tables...

Also would be a good way to catalog your collection for insurance value or even just safekeeping or posterity. I can imagine doing one volume per year? SOmething like that would be interesting.

Love it thanks for sharing! :D

Ricky Y

Really neat and crative. Thanks for sharing. Maybe I'll look into it as well.
Drew

Ditto what Jaybird said . . .
 

.

I've done something similar with my collections for just such a reason. Seeing is believing.

Another reason was to aid my "beneficiaries" in the future liquidation of my collection. To entertain potential offers from a larger pool of dealers, the books (with accompaning CD-ROM of both front & back closeup images) can be sent to many dealers at once, versus toting the whole collection from dealer to dealer. Dealer response would determine who to allow physical evaluation to. It's one thing to see a listing of what a potential seller has to sell; it's another to actually see the items offered. I realize the dealer will still want to physically view the items, but a potential offer of $1000 certainly trumps a potential offer of $850.