How do you guys keep track of your collections?

[porphyrogenita]

When I was starting out collecting ancients I spent a lot of time looking up different ways to track my collection inventory. I finally landed on a custom spreadsheet (inspired by one I saw on CT if I remember correctly) I fill out whenever I buy/sell a coin, which works well for my purposes but I'm curious what other people are doing (I've also got some sheets tracking the stats of my whole collection, progress on sub-collections, and my (slightly unrealistic) wishlist if anyone's curious to see those)! :))

[rasiel]

Host them on Tantalus! 

My Roman coins 

https://www.tantaluscoins.com/coins/grid28.php

My Byzantine ones 

https://www.tantaluscoins.com/coins/grid31.php

My Brits

https://www.tantaluscoins.com/coins/grid27.php

Rasiel 

[Broucheion]

Hi @porphyrogenita,

Here is my long answer to that question, also from CT:
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/ancients-do-you-digitally-catalog-your-collection.350297/#post-3881156

- Broucheion

Edited Saturday at 11:21 PM by Broucheion

[Phil Anthos]

I just use the free gallery hosted at Forvm...

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/index.php?cat=21312

~ Peter 

Edited Saturday at 11:46 PM by Phil Anthos

[Orange Julius]

I wish I maintained a spreadsheet but instead what I do is just use my email. When I get a coin, I attribute it through my library or reference sites. In the case of books I photograph relevant information, for reference sites I copy/paste like example images and information like maps, references, historical tidbits. I then photograph the coin and add the photo to the top of the email. I then just email it to myself and file it in my Ancient Coins folder. With this process, I can just use the email search and all information is available to me on my phone, computer or anywhere else I can login with to my email. The only downside is that access to this information is for now only open to me. If I’m abducted by a busload of fashion models, my family does not have access to my coin information. Otherwise, the process works well for me!

Edited Sunday at 12:05 AM by Orange Julius

[Nerosmyfavorite68]

A thread on here emboldened me to make an excel list of the e-buys.  It would require handling the coins before that, and since I still haven't mastered crisp, clear, coin photos, there's no point in handling them yet.  That project will probably never happen.

Perhaps the OP can elaborate on how he is including the pictures.  Is this in excel?  On slow days at work, I've been taking LinkedIn learning classes pertaining to Excel and Access.

[-monolith-]

I've been researching this topic for awhile. So far I have been testing Open Numismat https://opennumismat.github.io/ which is a free and customizable coin cataloging software as well as developing my own custom relational database in MSFT Access. Currently I just have file folders for each coin which contains the coins data sheet and subfolders for information and research. I want to input the information into a relational database so I can track my collection better (as I now have over 500 coins).

RIC file folder structure

 

Greek + Provincial file folder structure

 

Sample of my datasheet, and flip insert, for each coin

 

My goal is to create a database that allows me to easily create, cross reference, and search these data sheets and to have the flip inserts automatically generated / updated from the data input. I also want to be able to track coins purchased, coins sold, coins I want to purchase, purchase prices, values (for insurance purposes), and to be able to keep digital records like receipts, purchase orders, and prior coin tags within the database.

[sand]

I don't use any specialized tools, or spreadsheets, or web pages. I have a desktop computer. In my desktop computer's hard disk, I have a folder called "coins", and another folder called "coin_photos_ebooks_and_info". In the "coins" folder, I have various topics, such as "my_coins", "photos_of_my_coin_collection", "forums", "fakes", etc. In the "my_coins" folder, I have various categories folders, such as "Africa_And_The_Middle_East", "Byzantine", "China", "Roman_Part_1_Republic", "Roman_Part_2_Empire", etc. Inside each category folder, I have a folder for each coin that I own. Inside each coin folder, I have seller photos of the coin, screen shots of the seller description of the coin, screen shots of when I purchased the coin, provenance information (screen shots of ACsearch results), screen shots of coins of the same type on ACsearch, and a text file which contains my measurements and attribution of the coin.

In the "coin_photos_ebooks_and_info", I keep photos of various coins that I don't own, and electronic information about various categories of coins.

In the "photos_of_my_coin_collection" folder, I keep any photos that I have taken, of my coins. I'm way behind in this department, because it takes me so long to take coin photos.

That's about it. I own approximately 250 ancient, medieval, and modern coins which I care about and keep in Abafil coin trays and cases, and a Lincoln cent collection in albums, and some modern coins in albums, and a "junk box" full of coins. I don't have folders on my computer, for my Lincoln cents, or for my modern coins in albums, or for my junk box coins. I don't own thousands of coins, therefore this process seems to work for me. I can look at any of the 250 coins in the Abafil trays, and I can almost immediately find the folder on my computer for the coin. The coins in the Abafil trays are arranged by category, therefore that makes it quicker to find the computer folder for each coin.

I started this process early on, a few months after I started collecting ancients and medievals in 2018. Whenever I get a new coin, I create a folder for the coin, on my computer. Creating each folder as I go, is pretty easy to do. If I had to create all of the folders, all at once, I probably wouldn't do it, because it would be too much work all at once.

I also have several text files, with various types of information, about my entire collection. 1 file contains 1 line for each coin or coin book that I have purchased, showing the cost, seller, date, etc. That file also shows the total amount that I spent each month on coins and coin books. 1 file contains a list of my most expensive coins. 1 file contains the number of coins that I have, in each category.

I use Microsoft Paint for the screen shots and some of the photo editing. Microsoft Paint comes with every version of Windows, but sometimes it takes some work to find it. I use a photo editing tool called "Photo Explosion" for more complicated photo editing. I use Microsoft Notepad to create and edit my text files. Microsoft Notepad is another tool which comes with every version of Windows. That's it. Those are all of the tools, which I use, to keep track of my coin collection. All of these tools are easily replaceable, because there are many similar tools. All of my files are standard JPG and text files. I try to use as few tools and web pages as possible, to minimize the probability of losing everything, if the tools or web pages go away someday.

Edited Sunday at 01:36 AM by sand

[Sulla80]

Excel works well for me : pivot tables easily let me do calculations on numbers of coins, avg & total cost, counts by type, et.c.

notes on a subset of coins are maintained in my website / blog with relevant images & references.

https://www.sullacoins.com/

The spreadsheet data can be formatted by ChatGPT 4o to create a readable 2x2 flip

 

 

[ominus1]

[porphyrogenita]

2 hours ago, Nerosmyfavorite68 said:

A thread on here emboldened me to make an excel list of the e-buys.  It would require handling the coins before that, and since I still haven't mastered crisp, clear, coin photos, there's no point in handling them yet.  That project will probably never happen.

Perhaps the OP can elaborate on how he is including the pictures.  Is this in excel?  On slow days at work, I've been taking LinkedIn learning classes pertaining to Excel and Access.

It's a Google sheet! If you go to the top menu while in a sheet and click "Insert" and then "Image", you can add images either within or over cells. Here's an example of how I fill mine out (minus the provenance and cost columns) featuring one of my sigloi! 

[Sol_Invictus]

I keep a simple SQLite database, using sqlitebrowser for data entry. Nothing complicated, it’s just one table with maybe 30 fields. The same thing can easily be accomplished with a spreadsheet, I just personally prefer the convenience of using select commands to quickly search for something or pull together say the total amount I’ve spent over some specified date range. 
 

The coins themselves are in trays with tags that I print out.

[Sulla80]

11 hours ago, Nerosmyfavorite68 said:

Perhaps the OP can elaborate on how he is including the pictures.  Is this in excel?  On slow days at work, I've been taking LinkedIn learning classes pertaining to Excel and Access.

one option in excel - store the images somewhere that you can use a URL to get to them.  If you are using images from auction houses it is really easy:

right click on any image and "Copy Image Link"

You can also embed an image in Excel:

I link images, and don't use embedded images as I've found spreadsheets start to behave badly when filled with large images.

Edited Sunday at 11:09 AM by Sulla80

[Heliodromus]

I've got a fairly large collection of ~1500 coins, so organization and finding things is a potential issue if not done right.

What works for me is just to use the file system, with a combination of nested directories and photos with very long structured file names. In addition to my collection I also maintain a large collection of reference photos (> 22,00 at latest count), structured in the same way.

I basically collect Constantine I, but also his peers, so the first level of directories is emperors, then below that I have subdirectories per emperor for gold, silver and AE medallions (reference photos only - I don't collect that stuff), and then what amounts to an ad-hoc system of additional subdirectories for select mint-date ranges, reverse types etc. This subdirectory structure has grown organically to meet my needs to quickly find things. I was a bit surprised to recently count and realize that I have a total of 80+ subdirectories (mostly nested only 2 levels deep, but sometimes more).

Within this directory structure I have all my coin photos, with both collection and reference photos resized to a uniform 800 pixel width for easy side by side comparison of style, dies, etc. My file name are very long and serve two purposes:

1) To order the coins for browsing so that they group by reverse type, mint, date, etc

2) To contain all the components I want to use for searching on (using the file manager search function)

A typical file name consists of <emperor> <reverse legend> <mint> <date> <attribution> <size> <weight> <price>, and sometimes additional ad hoc search fields that I've found useful for a specific type, or more generally (e.g. "holed").

e.g.

"Constantine I Marti Conservatori Arles 313 (RIC VII Arles 25 R5 var - G5L, unlisted bust for type) advancing, cf Maxentius RIC VI Ostia 49 20mm 3.26g.jpg"

I only keep the prices in the reference section, where they serve to help advise future bids.

With this combination of directory structure and structured file name, I can both:

A) Go to a particular subdirectory such as "Constantine I/Marti Conservatori", and browse thru files (which will be ordered by mint and date per the filenames), and

B) From the top level directory (or anyplace else) just search for things like "constantine marti arles 25". Even across my 22K reference photos, search is basically instantaneous. I use Linux (and the Nemo file manager), but I expect Windows is just as fast.

The file manager lets me flip between filename view and thumbnail view, which can both be useful when browsing.

 

Edited Sunday at 06:27 PM by Heliodromus

[-monolith-]

14 hours ago, ominus1 said:

I have always admired this photo and the other one's you posted. I believe I first saw it on Cointalk. Nothing like having your coin collection on the kitchen table next to the condiments. 

Edited Sunday at 04:17 PM by -monolith-

[-monolith-]

1 hour ago, Heliodromus said:

I've got a fairly large collection of ~1500 coins, so organization and finding things is a potential issue if not done right.

What works for me is just to use the file system, with a combination of nested directories and photos with very long structured file names. In addition to my collection I also maintain a large collection of reference photos (> 22,00 at latest count), structured in the same way.

I basically collect Constantine I, but also his peers, so the first level of directories is emperors, then below that I have subdirectories per emperor for gold, silver and AE medallions (reference photos only - I don't collect that stuff), and then what amounts to an ad-hoc system of additional subdirectories for select mint-date ranges, reverse types etc. This subdirectory structure has grown organically to meet my needs to quickly find things. I was a bit surprised to recently count and realize that I have a total of 80+ subdirectories (mostly nested only 2 levels deep, but sometimes more).

Within this directory structure I have all my coin photos, with both collection and reference photos resized to a uniform 800 pixel width for easy side by side comparison of style, dies, etc. My file name are very long and serve two purposes:

1) To order the coins for browsing so that they group by reverse type, mint, date, etc

2) To contain all the components I want to use for searching on (using the file manager search function)

A typical file name consists of <emperor> <reverse legend> <mint> <date> <attribution> <size> <weight> <price>, and sometimes additional ad hoc search fields that I've found useful for a specific type, or more generally (e.g. "holed").

e.g.

"Constantine I Marti Conservatori Arles 313 (RIC VII Arles 25 R5 var - G5L, unlisted bust for type) advancing, cf Maxentius RIC VI Ostia 49 20mm 3.26g.jpg"

I only keep the prices in the reference section, where they serve to help advise future bids.

With this combination of directory structure and structured file name, I can  both:

A) Go to a particular subdirectory such as "Constantine I/Marti Conservatori", and browse thru files (which will be ordered by mint and date per the filenames), and

B) From the top level directory (or anyplace else) just search for things like "constantine marti arles 25". Even across my 22K reference photos, search is basically instantaneous. I use Linux (and the Nemo file manager), but I expect Windows is just as fast.

The file manager lets me flip between filename view and thumbnail view, which can both be useful when browsing.

 

With such a large collection how do you search or cross reference your files? For example if you want to find all the coins in your collection that have bulls or all the coins purchased from a particular dealer. I was having issues with this so I started looking into putting all my information into a relational database to eliminate the need for a lot of lengthy file names and folders that have to be individually maintained. 

[Heliodromus]

2 hours ago, -monolith- said:

With such a large collection how do you search or cross reference your files?

Just a combination of these two subdirectory and "filename built out of search tags" methods. For example, after Constantine's Italian victory the Aquileia mint was doing it's own thing briefly, issuing different reverse types for Constantine, Maximinus & Licinius, and since I wanted to be able to browse through these diverse types I have a subdirectory for them, "Constantine I/Aquileia 312-313". Of course even without the subdirectory I could also just search for "Aquileia 312-313", but then I'd have to type that in every time.

In the case of your bull example, if that was the something I wanted to search on, then I'd add "bull" as part of the file name. I do have a limited number of those sort of search tags that I use such as "holed", "radiate", "martial". Maybe in an ideal world it'd be possible to add search tags as an attribute of files separate from the filename (else if could become unwieldy if there were too many), but for my collecting domain I've not found that to be an issue, and using named files is hard to beat for convenience.

Edited Sunday at 04:54 PM by Heliodromus

[ambr0zie]

I think I inspired some collectors with my system (and I am glad) 

The order in my collection is the order I bought them in. I have an Excel file with important details 

 

And I keep all the coins in a Word catalogue. 

 

The only minus in this system is that the Word file gets pretty large - for the moment it has 392 MB after I compressed the pics as much as I could. Editing the master Word document is annoying as it keeps hanging - and not because of my PC specs. 

[-monolith-]

18 minutes ago, ambr0zie said:

I think I inspired some collectors with my system (and I am glad) 

The order in my collection is the order I bought them in. I have an Excel file with important details 

 

And I keep all the coins in a Word catalogue. 

 

The only minus in this system is that the Word file gets pretty large - for the moment it has 392 MB after I compressed the pics as much as I could. Editing the master Word document is annoying as it keeps hanging - and not because of my PC specs. 

When I first stated collecting I used a similar method (coins were assigned a number in the order they were purchased). I didn't separate them into any categories. After awhile it became difficult to track what coins I had and which ones I needed. I realized that I was purchasing a lot of duplicates that I didn't need so I updated to my current filing system. 

[Nerosmyfavorite68]

I get around the picture thing by adding a url to the local place where my coin descriptions are stored. I save the page of each dealer's listing.

Oh, I forgot, there are also the two respective folders where the e-buys are stored, the pre-2014 ones, and the more recent ones.  I can just sort them by title, date, etc.

Edited Sunday at 04:12 PM by Nerosmyfavorite68

[ambr0zie]

26 minutes ago, -monolith- said:

When I first stated collecting I used a similar method (coins were assigned a number in the order they were purchased). I didn't separate them into any categories. After awhile it became difficult to track what coins I had and which ones I needed. I realized that I was purchasing a lot of duplicates that I didn't need so I updated to my current filing system. 

This is not a problem for me, as I use filters in Excel. I can instantly see how many Trajan coins I have, how many denarii, how many Severan coins by filtering the rulers etc. 

[ominus1]

On 9/15/2024 at 9:44 AM, -monolith- said:

I have always admired this photo and the other one's you posted. I believe I first saw it on Cointalk. Nothing like having your coin collection on the kitchen table next to the condiments. 

...well now they ain't all there...i've got several boxes on the floor underneath and a few in a chair...plus i got a safe too....on the table are my active to add to collections   🙂

[kirispupis]

I've posted this before, but I have a custom coin-collecting software that I wrote for the purpose. It's crude, but gets the job done.

Here's the main screen. At the top I have all of my coins (nearly 900 now). In terms of organizing them, I have multiple collections (selectable at the bottom). Each collection has multiple pages. A page has a writeup and may include one or more coins.

 

Here's the UI for an individual coin. It contains a link to the thumbnail image and main image. These are exported from Lightroom using a custom export profile to minimize image size for web use.

 

Here's the page editing screen. The birth and death year are for auto-generating timelines. The latitude and longitude are for auto-generating maps. It's a crappy editing environment, but allows me to reference coins (images and attributions are automatically added) or other pages (which become links). Eventually I plan to add better quoting abilities and references.

 

I've also added the ability to design my albums within the software. I can then print out the pages and place the coins in them.

 

I also have the ability to publish my coins to my web site. You can see the results here. This includes a map and an ugly timeline. 

There are numerous improvements I'd like to make.

• Autogenerate inserts for the flips
• Autogenerate "coin cards" that I'll place next to the coins in the albums, since most of my coins are small bronzes that are otherwise hard to make out
• Add references
• Re-photograph all of my coins using a new setup
• Probably change the website to a white background to make it easier to read

And of course the biggest change is I'll need to rewrite this for Mac, since I've decided to replace my main PC with one.