Cataloging Silver & Gold Bullion Purchases

Most of the coins I catalog are my dirtfishing finds, which amount to hundreds of silvers, Indian heads, 2-cent pieces, and many late 1800's coins. Date and location found, 2x2's in plastic sleeves in a 3-ring binder, many pages at times dedicated to a single location, for instance a county park.

I meticulously catalog my entire collection. Not that it is a huge collection or anything, but it helps me to track them so I don't buy the same thing twice on accident. I use excel.

In addition to preventing accidental purchases, it serves two other purposes:

1. I don't keep the majority of my stash at home, so it helps me always remember what I have versus what I need. Since I have 30+ open series, an excel spreadsheet helps. Usually only my very recently purchased or my current items for sale are the only things I can physically touch at a given time.

2. Also, in a weird way, looking at my excel database of my coin collection is just as satisfying to me as looking at the actual coins. I get my collecting fix even though I am not often handling the coins themselves.

Cataloguing is half the fun for me ^^

I too write details on the 2x2 including price paid (this is really gonna create work if I ever come to sell as everything will need to have these prices covered up)

My Excel gives the location of each coin within my collection, face value, description, date, weight, size, mintage, condition, where I purchased, when I purchased, how much I paid, current value (date of amendment) misc notes.

I don't have a huge amount of bullion but this system is applied to every item I own... if my house ever burns to the ground the insurance company will have the most accurate claim ever.

This is excellent idea's. Thanks everyone.

This is something I wanted to accomplish this year.
I have just been using hand written notes in a small note book I carry.
So I have been working on photographs of my safety deposit boxes contents
and once I get everything inventoried I will also probably use a spread sheet of some kind.
My collection is a real unorganized mess but it is at least a work in progress now.
I am taking some pointers from my friend crazyglue.

Too funny. I get my fix from browsing the collection database as well. However, it is not as satisfying as examining the actual collection. It's just a heck of a lot easier to access and peruse than the actual collection.