Scanner hardware

Ricoh fi-8170 for Scanning Sports Cards

The real settings from a store that runs on one.

The Ricoh fi-8170 scans sports cards well: sleeved cards stack in its feeder, it captures front and back in one pass, and at 600 dpi the card number on the back is legible. As of September 2026 it is the scanner behind Loubs Cards, an eBay hockey store with 1,500+ live listings, and this page is that scanner's exact PaperStream profile, read from the driver rather than remembered. It costs $1,070.99 at ScannerOne as of September 5, 2026, it does not take graded slabs, and WaxEngine also accepts phone photos of raw hockey, baseball and football cards if the pile is small.

Written by Christopher Loubert, who owns the Ricoh fi-8170 on this page and built WaxEngine around the images it produces. Time-sensitive figures are dated inline and hardware specifications are attributed.

Ricoh fi-8170 scanner on the Loubs Cards desk with sleeved hockey cards loaded in the feeder and stacks of sleeved and top-loaded cards beside it — The Ricoh fi-8170 on the Loubs Cards desk in September 2026, with sleeved cards in the hopper, more stacks in penny sleeves and top loaders beside it, and WaxEngine's review queue on the screen behind.

The profile

What settings scan sports cards on a Ricoh fi-8170?

The PaperStream IP profile Loubs Cards scans every card with is 600 dpi, 24-bit colour, duplex, automatic border detection with deskew off, auto-rotate plus a 180 degree turn, ultrasonic multifeed detection on, and PNG output. The table is that profile as read from the driver on September 5, 2026, after 6,843 scanned pages on this counter. Build it once in PaperStream IP, save it under a name, and point a PaperStream Capture job at it.

Setting	Value	Why
Resolution	600 dpi	Sensor limit. Card numbers and serial numbering on the back stay legible.
Colour mode	24-bit colour, auto-colour detection off	Every side comes out in colour, no per-page guessing.
Sides	Duplex	Front and back in one pass. The back carries the card number.
Paper source	Automatic document feeder	Sleeved cards stack in the hopper.
Cropping	Automatic border detection on, paper size undefined	The scanner crops to the card, so the penny sleeves and top loaders in use at Loubs Cards come out as one image each.
Deskew	Off	Off in this profile; border detection does the crop and cards feed straight.
Rotation	Auto-rotate on, plus a fixed 180 degree turn	Matches how the cards are loaded in this feeder; the turn puts them upright.
Blank pages	Auto-discard on	Usually nothing to discard on a card; harmless to leave on.
Multifeed detection	Ultrasonic overlap detection on	Catches two sleeved cards stuck together before they become one image.
Brightness and contrast	0 and 0, auto-brightness on	Untouched; identification works from the raw scan.
Output	PNG, one file per side, named image plus a counter	Lossless. Files are 4 to 6 MB each and about 1,700 by 2,300 pixels for a sleeved card.

Cards go into the Ricoh fi-8170 feeder in penny sleeves at Loubs Cards. Top-loaded cards go through the same Ricoh fi-8170 there with multifeed detection on, which is first-hand practice outside Ricoh's plastic-card specification of 1.4 mm, not Ricoh guidance. The Capture job writes each side as a PNG into one folder, and WaxEngine watches that folder from Chrome or Edge, pairing the two files the duplex pass writes as front and back.

The hardware

What are the Ricoh fi-8170 specs that matter for cards?

Four specifications matter for cards: 600 dpi optical resolution, a 1.4 mm plastic-card thickness rating, a 48 by 50 mm minimum document size, and ultrasonic multifeed detection. The rest of the datasheet is office-scanner detail. Figures below are from the Ricoh fi-8170 datasheet published by PFU, checked September 5, 2026.

Spec	Ricoh fi-8170	For cards
Optical resolution	600 dpi	Scan at 600 dpi; it is the sensor limit
Rated speed	70 ppm simplex, 140 ipm duplex, at 200 or 300 dpi	Ricoh publishes no 600 dpi figure; a 600 dpi batch runs below this rating
Feeder capacity	100 sheets of 80 g/m2 paper	Sleeved cards are thicker, so load fewer
Minimum document	48 x 50 mm	A standard card is 63.5 x 88.9 mm, well inside
Plastic card thickness	1.4 mm or less	A 20-point card is about 0.5 mm; top loaders are not covered by this rating
Manual feed mode	Booklets up to 7 mm	Passports, not graded slabs
Multifeed detection	Ultrasonic overlap sensor	Leave it on; two stuck sleeves become one bad image
Interfaces	USB 3.2 Gen 1 and Gigabit Ethernet	USB is fine; Ethernet lets one scanner serve two desks
Daily duty cycle	10,000 pages	Compare with your own daily volume
Weight	4 kg (8.8 lb)	Sits on a shelf next to a label printer
Price	$1,070.99 at ScannerOne, September 5, 2026; $1,445.00 list	The main consideration for a small seller

The alternatives

Ricoh fi-8170 or a phone, a flatbed, or the old fi-7160?

A phone camera suits a pile of a few hundred cards, a flatbed suits graded slabs, and the Ricoh fi-8170 suits a backlog in the thousands. The fi-7160 it replaced does the same job at a lower rated speed and is discontinued, so it is bought used. Where the fi-8170 loses is price and slabs, and both are listed first.

Option	Wins when	Loses when
Phone camera	Fewer than a few hundred cards; no extra purchase if you own one; photographs slabs and thick cards; WaxEngine accepts phone photos of raw hockey, baseball and football cards	Thousands of cards, one at a time, front and back, under a lamp
Flatbed scanner	Graded slabs, thick relics, anything rigid	One lid lift per side per card
Fujitsu fi-7160 (used)	Same 600 dpi optical, 80-sheet feeder, same PaperStream IP driver; discontinued, so bought used	60 ppm rating at 200 or 300 dpi, USB only, no new-unit warranty
Ricoh fi-8170	Thousands of sleeved cards, duplex in one pass, straight into a watched folder	$1,070.99 as of September 5, 2026; no slabs; top loaders are outside the plastic-card rating

The Fujitsu fi-7160 drew about 7,500 US searches a month across its spellings in September 2026 (Semrush), more than the fi-8170, and Card Dealer Pro's hardware pages still recommended it when checked on September 4, 2026. PFU discontinued the fi-7160 and announced the fi-8170 as its successor on February 15, 2022; the fi-7160 page covers what to check before buying one used. The sports card scanner page covers the phone-versus-scanner decision in more depth, and how to sell sports cards on eBay shows where scanning sits in the whole workflow. The best card scanners guide compares the fi-8170 with the fi-8190, fi-8150, fi-7160 and ScanSnap iX1600 on the makers' figures.

After the scan

What turns a fi-8170 scan into an eBay listing?

A scan is two PNG files in a folder. WaxEngine watches that folder from Chrome or Edge on a desktop, pairs each front with its back in the order the fi-8170 writes them, identifies the raw hockey, baseball or football card from the images, prices it from real eBay sold comps, writes a title up to eBay's 80-character limit with item specifics, and queues it for review. As of September 2026 a card goes from feeder to a publish-ready listing in about 30 seconds of software time, and cards keep queuing while the scanner is still running.

No WaxEngine-specific driver or plug-in. A duplex scanner that writes each side as a separate JPG, PNG or WebP file, front then back, into a folder works the same way for raw hockey, baseball and football cards; the fi-8170 is on this page because it is the one on the desk, not because it is required. The watched-folder details are on the sports card scanner page.
What it does not do. Graded slabs are not priced. Pokemon is scanned and reviewed only. Basketball is on the roadmap. As of September 2026 identification, pricing, listing and relisting cover raw hockey, baseball and football cards.
The scanner is the commodity. eBay's own app identifies a card for free from a phone photo. The part that takes the time is everything after identification: the price, the title, the item specifics, and working the listing once it is live.

Start free trial Listing a whole box as singles

Common questions.

Does the Ricoh fi-8170 scan sports cards?

Yes. The Ricoh fi-8170 is a sheet-fed duplex document scanner, and trading cards feed through it like small stiff sheets. As of September 2026 it is the scanner behind Loubs Cards, a 1,500-listing eBay hockey store, at 600 dpi in colour with the automatic document feeder. Ricoh rates it for plastic cards up to 1.4 mm thick and documents down to 48 by 50 mm. A standard trading card is 63.5 by 88.9 mm and a 20-point base card is about 0.5 mm thick; thick relic and patch cards can exceed the rating, so check the card before it goes in the feeder.

Can the fi-8170 scan cards in penny sleeves or top loaders?

Penny-sleeved cards stack in the feeder and scan fine; the sleeve is thin and the scanner reads through it. Top loaders are not covered by Ricoh's plastic-card specification, which is written for cards up to 1.4 mm. Loubs Cards feeds top-loaded cards through its Ricoh fi-8170 as of September 2026 with multifeed detection on; that is first-hand practice outside the published spec, not Ricoh guidance.

What dpi should I scan sports cards at?

600 dpi is the setting Loubs Cards uses for every card, as of September 2026. At 600 dpi a sleeved card comes out at about 1,700 by 2,300 pixels per side, which is enough to read the card number and serial numbering printed on the back, and the card number is a strong input when WaxEngine identifies raw hockey, baseball and football cards. Ricoh rates the scanner at 600 dpi optical, so the setting is the sensor limit, not an upscale. Ricoh publishes speed figures only at 200 and 300 dpi, and no 600 dpi figure, so expect a 600 dpi batch to run below the rated 70 pages per minute.

Is the fi-8170 worth buying over the fi-7160?

The fi-7160 is discontinued and the fi-8170 is its replacement, announced by PFU on February 15, 2022. If you are buying new, the fi-8170 is the model on sale: rated 70 pages per minute against 60 for the fi-7160, both at 200 or 300 dpi, with USB 3.2 plus Gigabit Ethernet, the same 600 dpi optical resolution, and a 100-sheet feeder rather than the fi-7160's 80-sheet feeder. A used fi-7160 in good condition still scans cards, and PaperStream IP offers the same options for it, so the settings on this page are a starting point to verify on that unit.

Does the fi-8170 scan graded slabs?

No. A graded slab is a rigid sealed holder well outside the 1.4 mm plastic-card rating of the fi-8170 feeder, and the manual-feed mode for booklets up to 7 mm is meant for passports, not sealed acrylic. Photograph slabs with a phone or a flatbed. WaxEngine does not price graded slabs as of September 2026, so slabs are a different workflow either way.

What does the Ricoh fi-8170 cost?

As of September 5, 2026, ScannerOne lists the Ricoh fi-8170, US part number PA03810-B055, at $1,070.99 against a $1,445.00 list price. That is a lot of scanner for a seller with 200 cards, and WaxEngine also accepts phone photos of raw hockey, baseball and football cards. The case for the fi-8170 is a backlog in the thousands, where the alternative is photographing every card by hand, front and back.

Ricoh's own specifications are in the fi-8170 datasheet and the successor announcement in the PFU press release of February 15, 2022.

Scanner running? Point WaxEngine at the folder.

Sleeved raw hockey, baseball or football cards in the feeder, PNGs in a folder, priced and titled listings in the review queue. 14 days free, no credit card.

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