Catalogging Your Collection

Good idea. I think I may do that instead. Thanks everybody for the replies. interesting to hear how everyone does it.

I use spreadsheets for everything, inventory and want lists.

You are welcome.

I started to answer it myself, but decided that a link was easier.

BStrauss,

Once you get enough posts, PM me and I will send to you.

Duke

I use Microsoft Office Access. I don't use a template or anything, but what I like about it is the tabs for the denomination/country.

I would say that the first level of access is basically like a spreadsheet. You can define minimal validations, create views to subset the data, etc. But it's a pain to be creating a list of valid values and it gets unwieldy when you have more than a few entries.

So the next step - what takes advantage of the database - is creating lookup tables and linking them back to the data. That way adding a new type or mintmark is just entering a line. Then you add a flag as to whether you want to show it or not, so somebody who collects 1950s Jeff nickels doesn't see the Dahlonega mint "D". Anyway, I'm playing with the concepts and have a question about denomination / variety / subtypes, but rather than hijack this I'm going to create a separate thread.

OK... took me a while to even formulate the ?...

Say I build the database with lookups for everything (i.e. do a proper job). What I am asking is how do I allow the user to define the coin/series itself, that is to select one value out of all the possible coin/series data when you enter a coin into the database?

The problem is we are potentially selecting among a VAST population of data, every single coin series across the entire world. For example, while Numista lists 11 entries just for Silver US Dollars, their entire world catalog has 44,000+ entries.
I want something that works well for the focused series collector as well as the typeset collector.
I'm not worried about the data itself, for reasons I'll go into elsewhere/elsewhen you would probably get an empty list and have to populate it yourself, so there wouldn't be a lot of noise, but even with an include/exclude flag, the type collector could have 100s of choices, while the focused series collector might just have three choices, call them US, 5c, Buffalo, Type 1 (and Type 2 and Type 3). So for him/her pretty much anything works â€" the use case focuses on the typeset collector with a lot to choose from.

Traditionally you have a few choices of what are called "controls", a single dropdown, a series of related dropdowns (or buttons and dropdowns) or a tree.

A dropdown is the familiar text box + arrow â€" like the "font" selector on the CoinCommunity Topic Reply screen: .

A tree is the folder selector you see in Microsoft's (File) Explorer: .

The related dropdowns look the same as a row of regular dropdowns () but when you make a selection in the 1st item the choices in the second change.

In our case the series of selections would work like this:

• Country (US, CDN, GB, etc.)
  
  
  • Composition (Sliver, Gold, CN, Nickel, Bronze, etc.)
    
    
    • Denomination (based on selection US and Nickel, it would offer just the 3c and 5c)
      
      
      • Series (US; Nickel; 5c; Shield or Liberty or Buffalo or Jefferson)
        
        
        • Type (US; Nickel; 5c; Shield; Type 2, No Rays (1867-1883))

You can see how each step has a limited # of choices to pick through the vast possible set (the whole Nickel category has 10 choices itself â€" see http://www.pcgs.com/Prices/PriceGui...il.aspx?c=-8 ), but requires a lot of selections to get to the ultimate choices. Still, as you get familiar, it becomes you tab N tab S tab down-arrow enter.

The tree is the best way to present the data for the untrained user, but usually requires using the mouse.
The 4 or 5 level version borders on nuts (maybe we compress a couple levels â€" gives us more choices at a given level than strictly desirable, but less pick pick pick). Basic human factors design says limit each dropdown to no more than 10 entries, 4 or 5 is better - but doing that requires a more levels, which is itself unwieldy.

So, you typeset people out there which seems easier?


Then the second question is how to order the selections... For example, for US Silver Dollars we could have:

Or this set which works better for selection by keyboard:

• Draped Bust (small eagle) (1795-1798) - US, 1Dollar, Silver, KM# 18


• Draped Bust (Heraldic eagle) (1798-1800)- US, 1Dollar, Silver, KM# 32


• Flowing Hair (1794-1795) - US, 1Dollar, Silver, KM# 17


• Gobrecht (1836) - US, 1Dollar, Silver, KM# 59


• Gobrecht (1836-1838) - US, 1Dollar, Silver, KM# 59a


• Lafayette (1900) - US, 1Dollar, Silver, KM# 118


• Peace (1921-1935) - US, 1Dollar, Silver, KM# 150


• Morgan Dollar (1878-1921) - US, 1Dollar, Silver, KM# 110


• Seated Liberty (1840-1866) - US, 1Dollar, Silver, KM# 71


• Seated Liberty (1866-1873 - US, 1Dollar, Silver, KM# 100


• Trade (1873-1885) - US, 1Dollar, Silver, KM# 108

Which I think I've just argued myself into since you can tab into the field and then do the select based on 1 letter or 1 letter + a down arrow...


Any (other) thoughts?