Coin Inventory, Is It Necessary?

I guess the main point is, if you need to insure your collection against theft, and inventory with verifiable grading is required for some kind of claim settlement for the collections value......Pictures would be required, so not only your inventory list but pictures and established grading is a must, or one could simply make a list and turn it in......sounds like a trememdous amount of work to me......

For a darkside collector it's Very easy to forget which coins we have from where and such. Also if I have doubles I have a nice easy access to my collection for trade possibilities.

I think it's important to point out that most homeowner/renter insurance policies DON"T cover coins. You have to purchase a rider to get coverage.

I also find my coin database very useful for supporting my coin clubs. Every meeting night they have a theme, like "bridges" or "birds" or "transport tokens", and members are encouraged to bring along a small display to match the topic. I can simply go to my database, type in the theme for the night's meeting, and let it do the searching for me. It's much less hassle than actually hunting through the albums, searching in vain for coins with bridges on them.

Of course, it only works if I've done the hard yards beforehand and entered in all the possible themes a coin could be used to support.

I UESD to keep an elaborate spreadsheet in Excel for coins. Then one day I noticed as I printed out all that stuff, it took up about an inch of paper and for what? I had all kinds of info that I really didn't care about anymore. Then too if it's for insurance purposes, they seldom believe you from just a pile of your records. You need receipts and photos and even then, the photos must be dated and even then you will only get a small proportion of what was stolen if they insured it at all.
As for myself, I just gave up a long time ago as the collection grew way to much in quantity. For example to just record each Mercury dime would take me forever. I've got over 3,000 of those alone. Over 100 Whitman Albums. Documenting all that STUFF would take up all my time.
NO, I'd just rather look at what I've got and ignor attempting to document it all.

Hello,

Sounds like most people keep something. My current spreadsheet is really a lot of stats. I put in the year of the coin, the mint mark, the coin description, when I bought it, who I bought it from, the current prices from several price guides and ebay, what I paid and whether or not I got a deal plus a notes column for any special notes or oddities. Does that sound like too much? I'm thinking of scaling it down to just the coin info itself (i.e. the stuff I can get off the coin.) My want list has all the price analysis info on it so I think I can get rid of that stuff, and once I get a coin home and know I haven't overpaid I'm happy. My want list helps make sure that I don't overpay.

Here is my current problem I attended a couple of coin shows 3 or so months ago and bought some proof sets and commems and I didn't enter it in right away and can't remember what I paid or who I bought it from. That messes up my inventory if I'm keeping track of all of that. I'm not worried about theft because my collection isn't really worth a lot from a dollar point of view, from a sentimental point of view is another story. My homeowner's insurance only covers up to $2000 if my collection ever grows past that point then I'd be losing money in the long run if it ever got stolen. I also keep a pictorial inventory of all the coins I purchase.

I know the dealers I buy from and I can always look up values and as I said as long as I know tat I didn't overpay for a coin I don't care what I paid for it 1 month or even several years later, especially because of situations like my problem mentioned above. Any further advice? Am I even on the right track?

Rich

You need to track your cost basis when/if you sell since it's taxable. ;-) I have to admit I was surprised my insurance company doesn't offer a rider for coins since they do for other types of personal property.

the excel spreadsheet has helped me keep track of the coins I love to have and the direction to go for my collection. All the other unimportant coins, for me, they dont get listed at all