Coin Catalog Software

I want to finally take the plunge and catalog all my coins into my computer. I hope to save time, and trees, by having all of my collection at the click of a mouse. I have tried to search online and have not yet found the software that I believe would fit my needs. Some of the cataloging software is great for North American coins, but I currently have over 205 countries represented in my collection, so software that can show the Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Cyrillic, and other alphabets is a must for me. I would love to hear from everyone which software they recommend, and why.

 

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I use a blank spreadsheet because it is fully customisable to my needs. With a modicum of skill, you can filter/sort as needed.

I have toyed with the idea of creating my own database...but am having difficulty grasping the awesopme power of relation-databases.

I haven't found an opensource coin/collecting program that I was thrilled about.

/While excel is the most common spreadsheet program, I use Open Office Calc. Open Office is a free (as in beer and as in speech) office tools suite comprable to M$ Office. Open ofice is cross-platform. It works on PC, Mac, and Linux computers.

PM me for details of check out these links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org
http://www.openoffice.org/

 

Just use Excel. If you don't know how to use it, watch TV. There is some guy on TV lately called something like the computer professor where he will send you any computer program instructions free. Wish I could remember the toll free phone number.

 

Don't know if you'll ever see this answer since sometimes things vanish to page 2 or 3 fast. Anyway I saw that add on TV and it is called Video Professor. There is a toll free phone number of 1-800-501-6862. According to the TV add if you call that number they will send you a CD of Excel free. This is done so that you may order other programs later. It is supposed to teach you everything about Excel.

 

I use Excel for my inventory.
I also image all my coins.
And I learned how to link the coin images to Excel.

Now (or eventually when I get it done) I can open the Excel file and click on the appropriate column and SEE the coin too.

 

OOPPPS. Don't know why but that is the wrong number. I just saw that add again and the number was 1-800-765-8486. They are advertising a free CD to teach you how to use ebay. But they say that if you call this number and request any CD on how to do something, they will send it to you free. The purpose is if you like that one, you may order others. So you could order the one on Excel for free I guess. I never tried it but hopefully nothing to loose.

 

this might help out

here is one i just found. i have used it a little. its called coin manage 2008
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Others/Home-Education/CoinManage.shtml

there is a a free trial version and you can purchase a full version.

here are some features it has:
CoinManage description
A complete inventory program for the coin collector.

CoinManage Coin Collecting Software is a complete inventory program for the coin collector.

Save many hours of data entry by simply picking from the provided listings of more than 18,000 US, Canadian & UK coins. Over 1200 high quality coin images are provided to help identification.

Valuations are included for many different grades, as well as the ability to add unlimited file or URL attachments to your records and built-in links to hundreds of informational coin collecting sites.

CoinManage is a program made for the coin collectors around the world and has a big database of coins.

A new View window allows you easily view your collection in many different ways. View Want List and Sell List

info. View your coins by Month of Purchase, Month of Sale, Set, Location, Dealer, Customer, Grading Service, Year, Grade and Mint Mark.

Want to see and perhaps print all coins in your collection dated 1961? Simply open the Year icon and click on 1961. Sets have been introduced to the program. Define as many Sets as you want.

Each coin can belong to as many as 3 sets. Easily view coins by Set using the View window mentioned earlier. Use the CoinManage Needed to Complete feature to see which varieties are needed to complete a particular type set.

Now includes an integrated Report Designer and support for printing and scanning bar codes. Design & Print bar code labels similar to those used on PCGS, NGC & ANACS certified coins.

Here are some key features of "CoinManage":

· CoinManage ships with numerous useful reports and includes a fully integrated report designer. Create reports, labels, charts and print or export to a variety of formats, including PDF, Excel and HTML.
· Keep your data safe with our new fully-automated backup feature. You can also password protect your data.
· Stay up to date with our automated program update feature. You will be able to instantly download and install the latest CoinManage program updates, values and reports.

 

I also use CoinManage2008. I like it alot and it exports well into excel. Not to mention you can track you sales, customers, purchases, grades, errors, mint marks, sets and a whole lot more. I did however start with excel.

 

Although it is not, perhaps, the best solution, I use Access as I can get all that I need.

If you search, you may find some threads about this, for example :
http://cointalk.org/showthread.php?t=32423

Good luck!

 

Access would be great.
If I understand correctly it's a powerful relational databasing package.
Only problem I can foresee is that there's probably a nasty learning curve associated with it.
But if you can get by that, you can build a VERY useful inventory system.

 

I too use coinmanage08

 

I work with computers (in fact, I am a Computer Science Engineer) so the learning curve is not a problem for me.

It is quite powerful, but you don't even need many things for a simple coin database.

The good thing is that it is powerful and you can customize (almost) all that you want.

Maybe, the bad part for me, is that it is only for Windows (I often work with Linux) and you don't have prebuilt data about coins, as you may have in some coin software.

 

http://www.exactchange.info/

This may be what you're looking for. I personally don't need all of the high quality photos and up-to-date values, but otherwise, I think it's ideal. It does have date converters, and apparently has an Arabic text converter built-in.

It only works in windows, which also doesn't work for me, although I'm sur eI could run it uner Wine, or use one of my old, unused PC's strictly for this program. Maybe it's time to update my Christmas list.

 

I use coin elite.
It is reasonable, and easy to use.

 

I make a custom spreadsheet in OpenOffice.org Calc. It's very customizable, and powerful if you know how to use it. The same applies for any spreadsheet application. I can also use it on a variety of platforms that support ODF, including Gnumeric on my Nokia N800, meaning I can always have a record of my collection in my pocket.

 

I have used Excel but have found it too clunky and inadequate - sorting and arranging is not very user-friendly. I still use Lotus Approach, which is a sort of relational database, and found it easy to learn. However, IBM are not continuing it. I therefore use Access, which is enormously flexible. I can not only track what I've got, but who sold it to me, what else was in a lot, what the provenance of an item was, how much I have spent per country, what the value is (updating it automatically by formulae if I want to), what an item looks like, what the legend is (Access 2007 uses rich text, and so any character - Chinese, Thai, whatever - can be typed into an appopriate field), date, condition (e.g. I can run a report which tells me how many Unc. coins I have, who sold them to me, for how much, etc) and so on.

In fact, I've become a bit of an Access junkie, and enjoy fiddling around with a database and making it run even better. However, there has been a huge investment of time, and so if you're not the patient type this is not for you. However if you want the best there is (and stand-alone copies are not that expensive), go for Access 2007. You can even run it on the latest Macs as well as PCs.

 

I use Excel only because it's pretty universal and can be easily customized. It's really a great program.

I knew it pretty well but I found a guy that gives a bunch of tutorials on youtube that were really good. I learned a few more nice tid bits from him. They were very good.

 

When utilizing any coin software program there are a few things to remember. For one the ability to use your info on other computers. Note that most people will not allow you to put a program on thier computers. This means if your coin program is one that has to be installed on your computer, that is the only place it can be used. If your computer crashes and for some reason you can't find that program, all may be lost.
The nice thing about Excel or Access is that probably the vast amount of computers on Earth has them. Of course in China they are probably in Chinese. This means you could put all your info on a CD or one of those flash drive units and go anywhere and view our info as long as that computer has Microsoft Office which most do.

 

I use Pro-Coin 2008 and they are working on an updated version of the software with some major changes. You can find it at http://www.mwpsoftware.com/Pro-Coin/index.jsp and you can download a demo to try out before buying.

They are very responsive to questions or issues. And updates seem to be free -- I started with the 2007 version and migrated to the 2008 version without cost.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.....


Smaugy....

 

As a side note, I thought I'd add that Excel is very convenient for storing pictures of your coins as well. I don't catalog every one but I do like having pictures of commemoratives and other special coins on it.

I merge 3 cells in a column. Then merge 3 cells in the next column, to make two small squares side by side. I insert a pic of the obverse in one and the reverse in the other. These go to the left of my descriptions and other information. (It's up to you how many are worthy of spending the time on to do this. )

This may sound really small, but just as you inserted the pics and shrink them to fit, you can grab a corner just as easily, and drag it out to see a huge, full screen pic of any of them at any time. When you're done with one, just go back up to edit, undo picture stretch, and it brings it right back to the original size you had without having to fiddle with it to make it fit again. This way you can store many images on your pages if you'd like but still be able to see thumbnails of the images.

I like doing this because it's much easier to look at a picture on the computer than to take everything out to look at something.