The never ending task of labeling and cataloguing

One thing I've found with ancients, that was not an aspect of the hobby when I collected moderns, is that you are never done cataloging, re-tagging, and reorganizing your coins.

In just two months, I've changed style of tags 3 times, revised my personal catalogue several times as I found the need for more information and developed ways to display the information more clearly, and have changed the method of storage of my coins twice. It is really a never ending task.

Things were a lot simpler with moderns, where you just buy a slab, put it in a slab holder, and end of story. No need for time consuming research into your coins, or bothering with the accuracy and quality of the information of the coin label on the slab.

Anyway, I just made a new batch of tags/tickets (my latest version). Some of you may notice some similarities of mine to yours, as I've borrowed some things and put my own touches on others. I'll leave it here in case any other newbie wants to see a sample and get some ideas/inspiration.

 

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Looks great. It gets easier once you get your system established, but double-checking references never ends - if you care to get them right that is.

 

True, some of the RIC references never make clear whether they come from RIC I, RIC II, RIC III, etc. I have to fix that for most of my Roman coins. I've fixed some for other coins mostly (Non-Roman)...still haven't fix most for my Romans. I have a feeling some of these tags will be reprinted in short order as I work to make the references as accurate as possible.

 

Don't worry, it will fall into place. Always record more information rather than less. As you adapt your system, it is easier to drop information rather than have to go and look it up again. Your are still a baby at this, admittedly, you are growing up fast. Keep electronic copies of everything so making new labels as you adapt your system will be a breeze

 

man, i deed one of these "systems" you guys are talking about.



believe it or not, i sort of have one.

 

Yours:



Mine:



I must say, you certainly have good taste in your label design!

 

Funny! Sallent, had you seen IOM's labels before you designed yours?

 

I like the idea of color coding the slips. I may go that route myself.

 

I admit I drew inspiration from those, and others as well.

 

Once I saw yours, I knew I wanted color. So you were the inspiration for that. I've also borrowed from 2 others here for my tag design, so my tags are a hybrid of inspirations from 3 members here, with a few personal touches of my own.

 

Mine are similar, just no color.

 

I'm flattered!

I've always thought that color is generally underutilized in most layouts, especially considering the availability of inexpensive inkjet printers.

The value of using color is to draw attention to, or away from, specific data on the items being catalogued. By always using a certain color to denote a single piece of data (or logical group of information), and putting that data in the same place on each label, it becomes very simple to quickly locate any coin in your collection.

It's a bit of effort at first but once your template is set up, it's efficient and even fun.

 

I wish mine were neater but I don't have a printer.

I use business cards imprinted with my vanity logo. The use of stiff business cards makes it much easier to insert the paper into those darn Saflips. Regular paper is so hard to insert and remove. Also, the folded business card provides a nice place to put previous auction inserts or other items related to pedigree.



Lately I'm writing less on the part that shows in the flip-- just the basics.

 

My labels are printed on card stock paper for that same reason. The thicker card paper saves a lot of hazzle placing and replacing labels.

I like your cards a lot.

 

I only create tags when I don't get something reasonably descriptive from the dealer so I at least know what coin goes with the tag. Some auctions have nothing but the auction house name and the lot number in the flip.

As your collection grows, you'll want to consider an electronic organization method whether it is a just a spreadsheet or a database. I personally use my own database that I created in FileMaker Pro, which is a great product that is fully cross platform happy with Windows or Mac. It also has nice mobile support so you can take your database with you on the move on your phone or tablet. On mine, I have a place for up to 4 photos which I use to archive prior provenance photos when I can get them. Here's a sample screenshot.

 

I use FilemakerPro for my coin database too! Your layout is far nicer. I may have to copy yours . I also use Filmaker for my watch lists and coin books/catalogs.

My use of the watchlist waxes and wanes. It is helpful for certain months in which there are many auctions but between those times it is too time consuming to maintain.

 

Be careful with the paper or cardstock you use for flips. Paper usually has sulfur in it and sulfur tones silver. Many of us like our silver coins with a little toning, but I can personally testify toning can continue toward black and go too far. Therefore, you should use "sulfur-free" paper for your flip inserts.

 

I actually used one of their starter templates that came with the program. It was an inventory management and catalogue template so it was set up for product descriptions, pictures, dates, costs, etc. I rearranged it some, renamed the database elements, made several of my own, but the template got me 75% of the way there at least.

 

I asked a dealer who is first on my lit of people for my family to call upon my death. He said he did not care how coins were packaged and labeled since his practice would not be to copy provided information and he would repackage coins anyway as he processed them into his system. I do not know how many would agree with that but I took it as allowing me to do what I wanted. My computer database has all the information I have on the coins but the tags with the coins have minimal data including my accession numbers and enough to get the right tag with the right coin if a tray were dumped. When coins go from tray to envelopes, these tags go inside and that same data is lettered on the outside of the paper 2x2 envelope. If I later want to make a tray for easy enjoyment, the small tag goes with the coin and the 2x2 envelope goes back in the box empty but with a stick note tag that codes which tray received the coin. This means I only have catalog numbers, dates and peripheral details in the database (which has several backups in three different places) but you will recall that I consider catalog numbers considerably less important than most people do. I'm sure that some buyers of my coins would be happier to have the database info all printed out on a 1 7/8 square card stuck in a flip so they could sell the coins with no work but I doubt I would be selling the group to any dealer who would trust his reputation on what I thought about a coin anyway so it is not likely to come up.

My envelopes have as much data as a slab and the buyer of my collection will get the database if they want to refer to it. I like the example posted by Carthago above better than my spreadsheet style listing but do not see spending a significant portion of my remaining life entering data on all those coins so I doubt I will be changing unless the program has a feature that allows automatic transfer.

A question for dealers among us: If you were to make and offer on identical coins labeled in Ides style, TIF style, with a number allowing finding it in Carthago style database and just bare in a flip for protection, would your offer be different for the exact same coin? If you offered Ides $100, would Tif get $100 or $95? Would the plain brown wrapper get $100 or $50?

 

Unless a collection is quite small, I suspect that this dealer, and any others receiving a collection, would at least use the labels as a starting point for the correct description and attribution of the coins. I mean really, do you think a dealer would spend time cataloguing 500+ coins starting completely from scratch?