Coin Inventory, Is It Necessary?

It is also important to note that riders on homeowners/renters policies tend to be VERY expensive compared to coverage from a firm that specializes in covering collectibles.



This can be very important if you have high value items. If you don't have records showing purchase price or when acquired you run the risk of the taxable gain being figured from the face value to the present market value.

That's a GREAT idea! I was trying to figure out a way to do that! Now I need to go through all my albums!

Snitchard, one suggestion that would simplify your spreadsheet - drop the current price listing. You have to look that up each time and it is obsolete in a week. Who cares if you got a deal a year from now? I do include the price I paid, which gives me a rough idea of what I need to sell it for - pretty depressing really because I always lose money on resale.

By all means list the price you paid for the coin, just forgo the price list info. Unless all this is part of the fun of collecting for you - have you ever considered that you might be a little compulsive about all this? Been there done that!

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned CoinManage software... IMO it's great software, inexpensive, and allows one to track as much or as little as they desire about their collection... including photos, RedBook values, price paid, grades, varieties, sources, links, countries, bar codes, serial numbers, etc.

Once can do a google search on 'coinmanage software'. Liberty Street is the manufacturer.

Here is what I do. If you start with a good online software, or just use Excel spreadsheets, you will always know what you have and what you have in it. This is important information for selling or upgrading down the line, and marks the difference between a hoard of coins, quickly forgotten and a true collection. It cost practically nothing, except the time to update it. You can customize it to store just the information you want and need. I have four parts to my coin collection link. One spreadsheet that keeps track of Dansco albums dedicated to one series, containing detailed info on the keys. A second part that tracks the Dansco 7070 Typeset. I copied this spreadsheet off a previous post. This is the most valuable part of my collection and keeps track of original TPG grading before cracking out the coins, upgrades, and cost to name a few. A third spreadsheet that contains a list of all the coins not in an album, i.e. Morgans, Peace dollars, Mint sets, and bullion coins, etc. This spreadsheet is organized by denomination and is very important to track all those slabbed coins I buy on impulse because I like them. It helps me avoid duplicate purchases and to track my buying preferences. Lately I have begun adding VAM info on the morgans and Peace dollars. Fourth is a picture album of all my albums and many of my more valuable key date coins, including old US gold coins. All of these coins were slabbed originally and I took pictures of both sides in the slabs before cracking them out, plus saving the labels. I also have pictures of all the coins that stayed in slabs, An easy way to do this is to just save the pictures the seller used in his listing.

All this greatly enhances my enjoyment of coin collecting. The only real work was in entering all the data the first time. Maintenance is easy if you keep up with your buying and trading activity. One other thing, I keep all online purchase receipts in case I miss anything. I haven't found it necessary to store paper receipts provided I enter the data in my spreadsheets as soon as I buy the coin. It takes up no room, costs nothing and IMHO the more data you have about your valuable collection, the more you will enjoy it.