Cataloging The Collection?

I don't keep a catalog per say of my collection. Instead I use a spreadsheet program to track the amount of CRH I do, and then I make a notation of what coins I find (or what coins I don't).

The overall goal is that at the end of the year I can come up with some final tally of how many coins I've hunted through and what I found.

So in some small way, that list shows what I have because I am listing what I have found.

This is a really good topic, keep the comments coming. Folks in my coin club were asking around about this. I thought i'd do a presentation on what different folks do or what software people use to document their collection. I recognize there is an array and different folks will like different levels of details.

I dont have a catalog per say but most of my coins are in some sort of binder or album so theyre all in the same place. Some others are in the PCGS slab box as I havent gotten the lighthouse albums for them yet. If I just had a bunch of random coins that werent really that were of marginal value above face I probably wouldnt bother to catalog those just like I dont catalog my bullion silver. Like carl said thats a lot of effort that could need a lot of changing but I do keep some sort of album for the rest.

With some of the series like my commem series Ill also use the PCGS set registries as a way to keep track of what I have and still need. Very low effort for slabbed coins and can be checked in just a few seconds.

I feel like its one of those things where if you did it all along youll continue, but to try and go back and do it is just a nightmare

I use MS Access for my database. Here is the structure:

ID (a unique serial number I track them with)
Year
Mint Mark
Location (where I keep it, album, 2x2, etc)
Denomination
Type
Notes
Grade
Qty
Price Paid
Retail Estimate

I find it easy to use Access, as I use it at work. I have many queries and reports that I can print out to bring to coins shows. I enjoy computers, so it is part of the hobby, too.

At one time, a long, long time ago, I started an Excel spread sheet with about the same info as Sap's list. However, over time I started to delete one item at a time. And also, since many items were given to me by my Dad, again, along time ago, most of the info would be a guess. I never sell coins and at my age, possibly to late to start selling now so many other mentions of prices becomes unnecessary to me. And once any collection grows to virtually many thousands of coins, such records becomes massive and time consuming.
Once a person gets older, their interests usually becomes more of how to spend what time is left, rather than making a list for someone else. The main purpose of such a detailed list of course is

I obviously use Numismetrica to keep track of my own collection (when you develop something, you tend to use it... a lot :-) ) but even though I already have an established database schema, I find myself tinkering with it here and there, adding new fields and trimming old ones. The current schema is rather complex with 16 separate tables and hundreds of fields (not that the end user *ever* has to manage them manually as a lot of those have to do with things like price guides, coin demographics, bullion data and social media functions). What the end user plays with is point and click and tracks everything automatically.

Everything on my personal account is primarily broken down by album or container (for my CRH stuff :-) ) with call numbers so I know the place to look if I need to dig something out. I tend to be a bit of a pedant with that, but as a trained librarian it kinda comes with the calling. :-)

I'm also keeping track of my kids' collections on it, too. They love being able to watch their stats and the silver prices and FMV go up and down as it gives them a sense of accomplishment.