Provenance And Record Keeping For Bank Note Collections

In a recent post, Amrys mentioned enjoying collecting notes with a story behind them. I definitely can get behind this and I'm sure most of us feel the same way too.

After all, numismatics is part art history, part economics, part politics, and part anthropology. As such, naturally there will be stories. Even (especially?) pristine notes that haven't seen a day of circulation and have spent decades in collections/hoards have a story. All that turns into provenance and provenance can add major value to notes.

So my question is, do you keep journals/records of your purchases to add to the provenance and/or for personal records? I'm sure the high end collectors here definitely do if only for insurance and estate purposes. I pretty much keep track of every note I put into my collection, regardless of value. If I pull a note from circulation, I track it. If it's a $2.50 note on ebay that I spent more on shipping for, I track it (and note that). If it's a $100 note, I definitely track it (and for these I generally am much more detailed with my notes).

Eventually some of us may have our names attached to hoards.