Collection Inventory Systems

How collectors track their collection has always interested me. In the years before computers there must have been manual methods to get the job done. My father started the collection I oversee at a young age, as I grew older and became involved I continued his method as well as trying to start and maintain a few computer methods, which were left behind as computer systems changed. Today I continue the tried and true system my father started although I have been, very slowly, converting to EZ Stamp, a more accurate statement would be to mirror the manual system. With the computerized system I print reports, want lists etc. I will continue to track it manually as I can find any stamp I wish within a matter of moments whereas the computer takes time, considering starting the system loading the country file then finding the desired stamp.

So I thought I would share what I do and maybe give the idea to new collectors that should start tracking before it is too big a job to get under control. With the card method I track by Scott number, date acquired, cost, where it came from, location in collection and description. This becomes invaluable as the collection grows and evolves into an out of control mass of stamps.

I wish I could keep up with the page creation and mounting as easily as tracking it. At this point I don't believe I will, in my lifetime, mount and meld everything into the main collection. But at least I can find any one particular piece at any time.

I would like to see what other collectors are doing in this area and see how well their system works for them.

Looks very detailed. Can you provide a close-up of some of the cards to see how it was done?

It's hard to beat Excel for keeping stamp (or coin) records.

While I don't have stamps in an inventory program, I do have my model trains in one. I built the first spreadsheet with the old Lotus 1-2-3 program, and of course converted it to Excel (and rebuilt it) years ago. Excel allows you to do any sort you can imagine, and of course allows quick duplication of words or cell particulars (i.e. color, font, bold, etc.), and of course you can establish automatic numbering, math totals, etc., etc.

Considering my model train items total to about 800, and my postage stamps total to close to 10,000, the thought of putting together any kind of inventory would be a major objective.

Being on a small budget I use the Excel equivalent in the free LibreOffice suite. I am still fiddling with the best way to incorporate images in the spreadsheet.
For now I have a column of links to my image folders (I keep an image of every stamp in my collection).
Since I am also interested in making images of all the good postmarks as well I think a database is somewhere in my future. I am looking at the one in LibreOffice but I'm no programmer so it will be an interesting learning curve. For now, another column links the postmark images to my postmark image folders. One big no-no here is that any changes in naming my image file means an additional change in my spreadsheet. I believe a database can be set up where you only change something in one place.

I collect Canada, used, mint, and plate blocks. Naturally, a lot of other material has entered my collection. I use EZStamp to keep track of my collection. I appreciae the program's ability to search, but also to produce reports and want lists. The pages in my binders hold one stamp each along with the name of the printer, number printed, date of issue etc. along with a short history of why the stamp was produced.

I find that maintaining the binders to be very invigorating as it reminds why I began collecting stamps some sixty years ago as a teenager.

So far my records consist of:

1) A notebook indicating what came in via auction and the Scott # and catalog value versus what I paid, stamp by stamp for each separate lot.

2) Boxes of glassine envelopes with individual stamps or sets, with Scott # and catalog value, organized by country OR rarely, but occasionally, stock books with Scott # only.

The process of recording this takes forever and I am pretty far behind.

But I do want to switch to a more digital approach and need some way to catalog what I've taken from the envelopes and inserted in albums or inserted directly into stock books.

I was thinking spreadsheet, but I'll probably use a database that can be readily imported/exported to Excel spreadsheets or text files and used for other purposes. So I'm leaning towards developing an application to enter the data (another thing that will take more time than I have).

I use a similar system, but I store the stamps on the cards too.
Also have an Excel spreadsheet for quick reference.

Had a couple of wooden storage boxes made up to start with.




When I ran out of room, I started using cut-down A4 paper boxes.
Now I have 17 A4 boxes and 6 wooden drawers nearly full.
Downside is, it's very bulky so I can't take my collection anywhere.


Steve