I know there have been discussions in the past about which scanners work the best for Pokemon Card scanning, but I think the main one got deleted.
I remember people saying the Epson V37 was the best one currently available that didn’t cost an arm and a leg, however in Australia the only ones I can find seem to actually cost quite a lot. I see the Epson V39 is considerably cheaper, does anyone have experience with that one or any other current scanners they could recommend?
A lot of people seem to think the V37 is the way to go. I just got the V370 yesterday since the V37 wasn’t available to me. So far so good but I’m sure there’s some optimization to be done before I can give a proper review.
Wouldn’t it be cool if someone posted some advice for optimal settings and such too… 
The one you are looking for is the V370 I think. The V37 is the non-Aus model from memory.
You want a CCD scanner, not a CIS.
www.ebay.com.au/itm/282070215209 (you’d need a wall connector converter)
I can’t speak for the Epson product line, but I have always had great results with Canon products.
For instance, I have a Canon PIXMA MG5660 (scanner & printer combo) that I am very content with. (Right now it is in repair since the cat deceided it was fun the play with paper coming out of the printer while I was printing from the kitchen…)
But the scanner itself always looked great to me.
An example of a card I scanned a while ago:
Attachments:
The Canon you mentioned is a CIS type scanner which means it will not give good quality scans on graded cards, at least not near the quality of a CCD type scanner.
The scan you showed is a good example of it being able to scan a completely flat object. Try grading something with depth and have a look at the result 
Hmm you are probably right, I did never try to scan a graded card.
Well, disregard my post then
I purchased the V39 but it did not scan my graded cards well at all, as Oz mentioned it is a CIS lens scanner which takes off-focus scans of graded cards. I noted the differences in the scanning quality here: www.elitefourum.com/t/cis-vs-ccd-scanner-lens-warning-info/13730/1
I returned my V39 and purchased a V37 which has been awesome for me.
Can anyone go through and tell me the advanced settings they are using with their Canon V37? I tried using automatic mode and it didn’t come out very great for graded cards. Raw cards it is nice, but I bought it primarily because my CIS scanner couldn’t do the graded cards. It did raw cards fine too. Everyone’s collection threads have amazing scans and I can’t figure it out.
Thought I’d post some of my findings so far. Using Epson V370 Perfection (Professional Mode).
I have found 800dpi to be the optimal resolution. Any higher and the difference is only noticeable when you zoom in heavily to the scan. Any less and there’s a noticeable, albeit not huge, difference in sharpness of the image.
I’ve yet to experiment with every setting, but I have noticed something worth mentioning. For the ‘Auto Exposure Type’, I have found the scans of my cards to be better with the ‘Document’ setting rather than the ‘Photo’. The colours seem much more vibrant on the former.
Example:
Document:
Photo:
My experience is the file starts to get too big and I’ve had some abends on higher scanning.
