Coin database and labeling... one approach

coinpictures

The other thread this morning about labeling 2x2s got me thinking... How do we all track our collections and label our coins? Which software packages?

I use a home-grown method. I do web development and CGI programming, so it was easier to "roll my own" rather than deal with a commercial package's shortcomings or bloatedness. I can tweak things the way I want. Also, I like using internet functionality to store information because then I can access the information from anywhere, not just *my* computer. If I'm at the local dealer and am not sure if I have a certain coin, I simply ask to use his computer for a minute, and bingo!

Here are some screen shots from my coin database. It's not meant to be fancy, but rather simply functional. Since I'm the only one that ever sees it, there's no need for bells and whistles.

Main menu:




Once a country is loaded:




Bringing up an existing coin to edit or delete:




Clicking on the "Label" link in the coin list displays the following:




I then select and copy the above content to the clipboard. Using MSIE (which I regularly abhor) rather than Firefox, the copy retains the Bold font for the headers.

I paste the copied content into a 20-up PageMaker template sized for 1.75x1.75 inserts, that has cut marks. Once I have 20, I print it on card stock, and cut the pieces out (steel ruler, razor blade or Xacto knife, and a sheet of glass to cut on, works infintely better than scissors or a cutter).

Voila!

ozzysdad

That's very impressive, I'm not even close to being that good. Even with Ritalin 20 mg. 3 x day. I had better stick with the label's. I do think that printing them will make the process a bit more neat and I have over 20,000 coin's to get done and organized into 20 pocket sheet's.
I've got my work cut out for me for a while......

goossen

Very nice interface coinpictures!
I also use a "home made" software. I developed it with VB.

SYRACUSIAN

Impressive.Can't you add photos to it?


I use a simple Excel sheet for my database.

farthing

Nice work!

The form does not include several pieces of information that I find necessary:
I like to include the fineness of silver or gold coins, the mint mark or location of minting (ex. Calcutta, Bombay, Noida, etc. for Indian coins), and the date (and reginal number) in the native date format (AH, SH, VS, Hebrew, etc.). For Belgium and South African coins I also track the legend language even though these normally have different KM #'s. For Belgium coins you also have A and B position for the legends on the edge.

Then you have to decide how you want to track States issues (Germany, Italy, Switzerland, India, China, etc.), Bishopric, City and Abbey issues, tokens and notgeld, the name changes a country may go through over time, the changes in currency names, monetary reforms, etc.

It's always difficult to decide where to cut off the data fields you record. The problem is that as your collecting expands (or focuses for that matter) you often find that you want to track additional data and end up having to go back and update the information for parts of your collection.

coinpictures

That's the beauty of rolling your own. You can design it to hold as much or as little information as you want.

When I first started looking at what freeware, shareware, and then commercial offerings were out there, I found most to be utterly bloated and laborious to navigate through. They tried to be all things to all people, and I find that approach to be ineffective.

I could add photographs, but that's actually another set of scripts hosted on a completely different domain. I thought about combining the two systems, but I just didn't want to go back and recode things.

farthing

I agree with you on the state of commercial packages for world coin collectors. Either the software doesn't track the data I want or they have way more fields than I am interested in entering.

Like Syracusian, I use Excel spreadsheets.

Preussen

Very nice system , but I find that Excel works just fine for me . - Preussen