Do you use software to manage your collection?
terribleredmonster
Posts: 456 ✭
I've been feeling increasingly compelled to inventory and catalog my small but growing collection. My thinking is that counting, classifying and categorizing every piece of numismia I own will help me to focus and direct my collecting efforts. I've messed around with various formats of spreadsheets in excel, but truth be told I'm not particularly inclined towards learning it well enough to customize it to my needs. As a result I've been looking into various titles of coin collection management software. I'd like to hear what everybody is using, what they think of it and what it cost. Needless to say, I'd love to hear that there are decent programs available for free/cheap.
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<< <i>Excel. Infinitely customizable. >>
I had used WinCoin by Bob Stech, but I needed a more robust and more flexible data entry software. Coin Collectors Assistant has an import feature, which made it worth it for me, because I had a lot of Lincoln wheaties to upload.
If you're of the box of 10 type collectors then use Excel. But if you have more than 1,000 coins you might want to consider purchasing a coin-specific software program, especially if you desire the automatic coin values being applied to your collection.
CoinManage by Liberty Street Software is another excellent choice and priced competitively with Carlisle Development's product. However, CoinManage doesn't offer an import utility and it's coin values are proprietary. Whereas, the Coin Values associated with Collector's Assistant is from Coin World's coinvalues database.
Either way, both options are pricey and I'd stick with Excel if I didn't have some many coins in my collection.
Cheers!
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<< <i>Another vote for Excel ... >>
Michael Kittle Rare Coins --- 1908-S Indian Head Cent Grading Set --- No. 1 1909 Mint Set --- Kittlecoins on Facebook --- Long Beach Table 448
Excel is an excellent low-overhead way of keeping track of your stuff. Access is much more powerful, but can become more difficult to use, depending on how you organize your database.
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Currently I do not use excel. I use the free Sun Microsystems open office calc which is fully compatible because I got tired of either buying a new copy of office or more likely, trying to move the old copy to a new computer every time I got a new computer.
The many-year-old file was started in excel and currently updated in open office.
--Jerry
collection but never seem to have the time to do so. Selling on different sites including my own,
sending and receiving from TPGs and other sites is just too much for me to have the time.
Although I have tried to stop my sending to grade and to stop buying for a while as a addict collector,
it is almost impossible as this is coin-oholic heaven....LOL.
But, I know one day before I pass, for the sake of my kids and knowing that you can't take it with you, at least I want to leave everything in my personal collection some what organized so my kids have an easier research ability and don't have to go through all the trouble I've gone through....
So, my answer is, I have not "cataloged" my collection yet but want to.
https://www.smallcopperguy.com
<< <i>The only coins that I have that matter are managed by the PCGS Registry and the sets I have set up there.
Me too! It was an effort to get all the data there but I'm glad I did.
Lance.
Took about 10 minutes to create and only slightly more time to type everything into, although I still make tweaks from time to time, I am always coming up with ideas on how to improve it...
Here are some screen shot examples...
(I eventually removed Canada from the World chart. I have a friend in Canada who helps me get their coins so I have a huge proportion of them, about 140)
Here is the actual screen
Hope that helps.
One quibble I have is if you collect modern issues from the mint it can take a year before a CM update comes out that includes the new coins. However, the manual entry function allows you to input them yourself, and when you do get that update it scans carefully for the new records to avoid duplications.
(Just think of city streets clogged with a hundred thousand horses each generating 15 lbs of manure every day...)
<< <i>
<< <i>Excel. Infinitely customizable. >>
I used Excel for about 15 yrs. It worked great until I ended up with Large multiple collections. I tried a half dozen collectable software. I've been using the current one for about 5 yrs or so. It's exceedingly powerful, but horrible support. It can get as complicated as you desire. The cost is very cheap, perhaps $30. It does everything ..... Except value updating which has to be done manually for each item.
collectable solutions
Steve
Coin's for sale/trade.
Tom Pilitowski
US Rare Coin Investments
800-624-1870
<< <i>With Excel, I was always afraid of mixing up my data, and then not being able to correct it. >>
I've done this about a dozen times and this is why I gave up on excel.
It cost a few bucks but it does it all.
I'm lazy.
<< <i>For me, Excel. I've used Excel my entire working career, so I'm very comfortable with it. I break my categories down into Excel worksheets within the overall Excel workbook. I connect the worksheets, within the workbook, to an overall Excel master worksheet that lists all the categories. Any and all changes are made in the master worksheet, which automatically transfers such changes to the worksheet categories affected by the change. I also do some color coding within the worksheets. It makes it a little more pleasing to the eyes and pinpoint items of major importance. I'm in the process of adjusting the master worsheet to show the Grey Sheet bid/asking prices, retail price, and wholesale sell price to the dealer. These scenarios will give me several ways of looking at the value of my collection. I'm using Excel on both my coin and currency collection. I love Excel. >>
It sounds like you have a great setup...
I use Excel for most of the detailed information and "My Collection" at Heritage auctions (it's free) for cataloging my best coins (you can upload photos there).
"My Collection" also has a nice pricing section, but I've been away from collecting for many, many years and need a refresher on pricing. Once I know how to use the pricing section correctly, it will become especially useful when needing to know what to bid at Ebay for a given coin in a given condition (or what to pay for a coin anywhere, for that matter). In the pricing section it has the following headers and pricing for each grade for a given coin:
Coin World
PCGS Price Guide
Numismedia Retail
Numismedia Wholesale
Numismedia NGC (nmn)
Numismedia PCGS (nmn)
I understand in principle the difference between wholesale and retail pricing, but can anyone briefly explain at a high-level the definitions and pricing differences between these various pricing models as listed at the www.ha.com site? Thanks!
I do like the pie charts someone showed. Reminds me of my graduate level statistical graphics course. Anyone using a pie chart to show data would fail the course. I think the only graph type that was worse would be a 3-d pie chart.
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