Over the years I have heard from several collectors who are just not comfortable using coin inventory, spreadsheet, or database software. Others are simply afraid of losing their information to computer crashes and viruses. Whatever the reasons, they simply don’t like them or avoid them entirely.
But like most collectors they find different ways to catalog (or inventory) their collections. Listed below is a collection of the solutions that cost little or no money (dare we say FREE).
Do you have a unique approach to cataloging your collection that you would like to share here? Then feel free to contact me and we’ll add your solution.
Online Photo Sites
Description - Many collectors find it much easier to manage their collections by visually seeing all their coins laid out on a single page and thanks to the internet there are many solutions available. Most photo storage sites allow you to add descriptions, create multiple albums or collections, and some even allow you to define and add attributes.
Recommended Sites - Omnicoin.com, Flickr.com, Picasa.google.com, and Photobucket.com
Start your own Wiki or Website
Description - Still not happy? Then design your own solution by creating your very own wiki or webpage. Designing a webpage is no longer an HTML black art. Many sites come with pre-made templates and built in editors that do all of the hard work for you. If you can type then you can create a site. There are actually two free approaches that can be taken here. The first is free website hosting. These sites typically allow you to have up to 5GB of storage but the trade-off is that you have to live with advertisements on your page. The second solution is to utilize a wiki. Wiki’s tend to be much easier to create and maintain carry few (if any) advertisements. Wiki’s typically allow you to have an unlimited amount of pages but tend to limit your file uploads to 100MB (Wikidot allows 300mb).
Recommended Sites - Wikidot.com, Geocities.yahoo.com, and Freewebs.com
Old Fashion Pen & Paper
Description - “If it ain’t broke why fix it?” Or so the old saying goes. This is probably the most basic and simplest solution available to collectors. If you have a notebook, ruler, and pen or pencil then you are ready to start record keeping. Worried about reorganizing entries? Then try index cards, with index cards you can even add a photo. So take that all you fancy computer users.