Starting Some Serious Inventory

I won't ever inventory all of mine either. Some of the coins I inherited 50+ years ago just aren't worth the effort, and whoever's lap they end up in can have fun looking them up (world coins). I buy so few new coins that I photograph each one upon arrival and put the images and invoice into a separate folder under "coins" on my laptop and backup drive. If I get run over by a Loomis truck someone would have to poke through all those folders, but at least it's there. For a guy who used to architect and code entire enterprise databases, it's pretty stupid that I never did something like that for my coins, but work was work and fun was not work.

 

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Sounds like it but I’m still finding them.

 

According to my coin database, I have 9054 coins in there. Seems like a lot.

 

My general coin inventory is very simple. From 1900 to 2018 (when I quit adding new issues to my collection) I am missing 4 Wheat Cents, 2 Barber Quarters and 7 Standing Liberty Quarters. The ASE collection has so many different variations that I had to do an inventory.

 

I hear you man, but sometimes you just get busy. I usually open it up, but many times nowadays do not have time to attribute group lots. I am getting lazy and just putting the whole bag into a box and into the SDB. I just did that the other day, had about 80 REALLY NICE duel head bronzes from NN I had bought, (really, smooth flan, gVF or higher all of them), and simply threw them in a cardboard 2x2 box and into the SDB. I tell myself I will sort and attribute when I am retired, but I literally have thousands of such coins like this now. Not sure if I ever will.

 

Doe most homeowners insurance policies cover coins? Or do you need a separate rider for coverage?

 

Most home owner policies only cover coins for face value (at most bullion value). A rider is needed--or, IMO, better yet, a separate policy issued from a company that specializes in insuring collectables such as Hugh Woods.

 

I think ours has some ridiculously low limit for claims on coins/precious metals/jewelry. Beyond that, you need a rider, and IIRC they're very expensive (multiple % of total insured value per year).

 

Hugh Wood is the best option in my opinion. They make it really easy and are trusted by many in this hobby.

 

Any sort of a list would make me accountable for my gathering let's not go there

 

I guess I am t he old school

 

Wow! Time takes over and we realize what we have accumulated.

 

I take it you didn't capture ALL of your coins in your data base, individually, did you? I mean, I probably have half that many in Wheaties that I saved up over the years. I'm not going to catalog all of those! And, how do you handle rolls of coins (e.g. I bought three rolls of the Washington Dollars when they came out in 2007. I also have rolls of Mercury Dimes, Franklin Halfs, WLHs.

Gonna have to figure out how to catalog stuff like that.

I'm just starting my inventory as well (I'm cheating and using a program called Exact Change, rather than creating my own database). Finally getting "A Round Tuit"! I have exactly 51 coins input, so far! Long, loooong way to go! And, that's just inputting them (Date, MM, grading company, grade, date purchased, buy price, date sold, sell price, where it's stored, slab number, notes). And, I haven't started imaging any of them. It's a lot of work!

 

Yeah, its an entire retirement project for me if I get around to it.

I am like you, having individual coins but then having bags, boxes, rolls, etc of others. For my US I have bags and bags of buffalo nickels, wheat cents, etc. For ancients I have bags of different things above and beyond individual coins. This does not even count things like junk silver, etc. Then there are world coins, mostly in bags. Just lots of "stuff", which is why I am getting leery of buying things with boxes or slabbed anymore. Too much space. I am a hoarder, but concentrate on coins to minimize space concerns, but boxes and slabs accentuate the space issue.

I think my retirement will start with the boxed, better coins and ignore the rest. The rest to me are just "hobby junk" really.

 

I think I'm planning on getting rid of a lot of my "hobby junk" - sell it and use the proceeds to get individual coins that I really appreciate.

 

My coin program has places for rolls and groups of coins but the database is 99.9 percent individual coins.
I have been adding to this program (Coin Elite) for close to 40 years now.

 

I need to update the Excel file today, thanks for reminding me.

 

I collect mostly mid-grade stuff that's all over the map, so I realized a long time ago I needed to create a spreadsheet (OpenOffice for me) because there's no way I was going to remember it otherwise . Plus I'm a nerd.