What would an ideal price for a digital coin album?

Didn't want to get into this, since we are supposed to be talking coin-related stuff. But since we kind of are and given some of the previous comments, I just have to add my dos centavos...
Don't be afraid of the technology, people. The only way to keep it from mastering your life is to master it first. Pick and choose what you will or will not use, but first understand it. I'm 65, the rapid change of tech really ticks me off sometimes, but that's mostly because the ones who are making the money off of it design it so that you have to constantly upgrade to be able to make good use of it. And when they pull a Microsoft and make the new versions of the hardware incompatible with the previous versions of the software I could throttle someone. I go back a ways. The new stuff is great for the graphics, but I spend most of my time writing, and for that my old 486/Windows 3.1 machine works just as good as and better than this glitchy Windows7 Acer laptop I use. And that 486 didn't do word processing any faster than the VIC-20 I used to have (still have one in its original packaging, BTW). Right now, I have an Android phone and an Android tablet, and I can use any of these for my purposes at any time without it costing me anything because of all the free stuff that is available. Don't be afraid of it, choose what you will use, and own the technology so it can't own you.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

When I made my "virtual 7070" album, I changed the shape of the pages to be wider than tall (to fit the screen better). The image of the obverse and reverse are side-by-side for each coin (works well with the wide pages). There are no back-side images for the pages, and no covers, no leather textures, etc., and no page turning -- just 6 .tif files with the coin images overlaid on the page. It doesn't look like an album at all.

I'm also an old guy.

 

I would like if these albums are empty and people can buy the album and put pictures of their own coins into them so that its custom to their own coins. Do you know what I mean?

 

see post#28 and open PDF for empty Mexico Sample. The whole idea is that the albums are YOUR COINS not ours. No one want's an album with my coins, but me.
The whole concept we are trying to promote is we build a CUSTOMIZED album for the client using their coins. Limited only to the imagination of the client. You name the Country, theme, topic or what ever. Let us know what your specifications and designs needs are and we build it to those specs. Not trying to promote buying my personal collections.
One can use a blank PDF file and complete it themselves, or upload the photos and we complete in PDF or eBook format.

 

At first I thought this thread was to discuss a general idea, but the last post (#44) make it clear that it is a sales pitch. I thought that was against the rules. Shouldn't it be in the For Sale forum?

 

Perhaps I should have worded it differently. I was try to explain what the concept is to make it easier to understand. I am not making any offer to sell anything except a concept to determine if there is any demand. No sales pitch has been made. If anyone took it as such, I apologize. This idea is far, far, far away from a marketable product. You might say I am doing market research to determine if there is indeed any demand for this product. This whole idea may fall into a black hole as far as I know. If any of the moderators feel I have violated any rules, please let me know and feel free to edit or delete any offending post.

 

This thread proves the old saying, "No good deed goes unpunished."

Take it from someone who uses PhotoShop in his work, @gxseries and @sonlarson would be hard pressed to earn minimum wage even at the highest price in the poll.

There are some Dansco fans here, and many have expressed admiration for the digital albums gx and sl have posted on other threads. I interpreted this thread as being driven by a desire by gx and sl to do a favor for those forum friends, and to see if those friends would be willing in return to partially — and I stress partially — offset some of the time commitment required. Trust me, if you walked into a professional design studio and asked for one of these digital albums, you'd probably walk out 4 figures poorer.

I find the negativity and accusations of marketeering way off base and uncalled for. If it's not your cup of tea, that's all that needs to be said. Just my two cents.

 

Duly noted Maxfli, but I think you are off base & need to go back & read all 46 posts previous to yours.

Here is the exact question from the OP in post #1: "The biggest question is, what would you be happy to pay if you can customize anything that you really want? What are some albums that you would want to see?"

It doesn't take a giant leap to understand he is doing his market research (& no problem with that!).

sonlarson has a problem with the "negativity"? There is no negativity, just honest feedback from the group from which the OP is seeking feedback.

Again, reread the OP's original post (#1) and the "biggest question" above, a direct quote. What would you pay.....?

Anyone who has been on this site for a reasonable amount of time should realize a few things: Many (most?) of us have been doing this for a considerable amount of time & have evolved to our own methods. I already have pics of the coins I need in a format that I want. I do not want & have no need for a digital album to carry around. I don't want my tonnage to be accessible in one place so everyone can know what I have. And I hardly ever look at the pics anyway; they are for identification, particularly when I have multiples. I much prefer to handle & admire them directly, in hand, which is why most of them are somewhere in my house, because I'm retired & at any time I may pull out a certain collection to admire (still can't get my wife interested though).

Only a very few of my closest family even know that I collect "these things", & I keep it that way intentionally. I don't need a digital album to brag to others & when I'm shopping, I don't need to refer to my "albums" to make a buying decision.

No, the OP has a certain intention (re-read post #1 in its entirety), and the responses he received so far are not "negativity", they are the very personal & accurate feelings of the myriad of collectors, most of whom have been doing this for a very long time.

Are there going to be people interested in a digital album? Certainly! Are there going to be enough of them to satisfy "the biggest question" posed by the OP? Probably not?

You may again look at my previous post to this thread - it remains the same.

 

No need to reread all of the posts, they were fully understandable the first time.

It was reasonably clear from the OP's post that he wasn't addressing people like you. He wasn't asking for opinions on the merits of his digital album as a cataloging system. He wasn't trying to sell the concept vis-a-vis other cataloging techniques collectors may be using.

It was reasonably clear, even though he didn't state it in exactly these words, that he was simply asking, if you'd be interested in a Dansco style digital album like those linked above, what would you be willing to pay for it?

For those not in the intended audience, the best response is probably none at all, or at most a polite deferral. The criticism and accusations were unnecessary.

 

Maybe to you. But apparently not to many others.

 

I am not great with technology, so I would either have to pay someone to do it, or take lessons

 

I don't know if it is cultural thing or I'm missing something. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and I'm not expecting everyone to like what I do. I understand if the conversation ends at "I don't like it". But after spending a fair amount of time and to get a lecture of why this is worth 0 - I'd like to know where this is culturally or socially acceptable.

The original topic is meant to be a research of what people would be interested in. I did not want to be too specific as I wanted it to be an open end discussion. I'm sure many old time collectors lament that the good old times of quality coin albums that were long discontinued back in 1960s. I believe large album manufacturers would be happy to create one at an absurd cost and hence I'm trying to tackle this in another way.

 

I had no issue with your original post and I truthfully answered that I would not be interested. I did not ever realize you were thinking of it as a potential commerical venture. It was not until post #44, when this was made clear, that I to exception to it. I think it should have been made clearer from the beginning. Perhaps something along the lines of "We are considering the possibility of a commercial venture but would like feedback on the possible level of interest."

 

OK, one more time!

The biggest question is, what would you be happy to pay if you can customize anything that you really want? What are some albums that you would want to see? - gxseries in OP

I am not making any offer to sell anything except a concept to determine if there is any demand. - sonlarson post #46

You might say I am doing market research to determine if there is indeed any demand for this product. - sonlarson post #46

Maxfli, this is exactly what they are doing...Market research!! And they are addressing our entire community, not just the people who might have interest. Imagine if only those three people answered...they would think they have 100% positive response, when in fact they do not.

Again, I don't have a problem with "market research".

In real world market research, the objective is to learn the pro's (& why) as well as the con's (& why). Sometimes it only takes a little tweak to turn a con into a pro (not in this case though) & this is the info they should be striving for.

But after spending a fair amount of time and to get a lecture of why this is worth 0 - I'd like to know where this is culturally or socially acceptable. - sonlarson post #52

Comments like this, or about "negativity", or about "criticism and accusations" (Maxfli) are absurd. This is all valuable information to a market researcher.

It's too bad gxseries & sonlarson are not as experienced in this area & wear their hearts on their sleeves.

OK, this is the last time I expect to respond to this thread. And Maxfli, no need to respond to me as I already exercised my Ignore button on you.

 

So basically you are looking to offer a customized template into which I would put pictures of my coins as a digital replica of the physical items? Potentially in a different sequence than I might have them stored?

Truth to be told it might be more useful to have the coins hot-linkable in a variety of ways - next of this denomination, next of this year, click to zoom in, etc. - I'm thinking to take advantage of the digital medium instead of trying to replicate a prior medium...

 

IMO nothing wrong with doing market research like this...just finding out if people like it and what they would want to see done with it.

This. I love the old albums in hand. I also very much enjoy looking at the ones you made too--very beautiful and excellent work (naturally I'm partial to the Japan one, but boy a Zog era Albanian one would be totally awesome even if I'm the only one looking at it).

But, if I were to BUY something, then I'd want it template where it has the look of an album--either a classic Dansco, but maybe another look could be swapped out-- AND clicking on the photos could bring up enlarged/high res versions of the photos, coin information etc. Shoot, I would like that as a website template while I'm in dreaming mode, so it could be shared even more easily (assuming one has a website).

 

Gxseries....ahh I get it now! I voted and put about $50 or so. I don't have the capacity to do a nice album like I've seen so I would pay for someone to do one for me. I however would like more detailed information in mine.......for example I collect thai coins, I would want in the album some information about the different Kings (Rama) instead of just empty holes to place pics of coins in there. If its a plain boring album, I would not want to pay much money at all, I would want more details so that someone looking at the album could also understand something about the country as well. Good example, look at some of the NGC registry award winners, some have elaborate descriptions for what they are collecting.

 

Thanks for your additional feedback, Burton, Stork and Mkman123.

I acknowledge that having additional information description is handy. I have to figure out how to balance the amount of text against coin pictures / illustrations. I know some of the classic albums do have text in the cover pages. It's possible to do more such as having a simple description under each coin; to make it aesthetically pleasing is another different world.

I will have to figure out what is the best way to link up high resolution photos. Not so straightforward as some photos can easily be from 4 - 10 mb each and you don't want to design something that hogs a lot of bandwidth.

Most definitely a good challenge!

 

If I'm dreaming...

I send you a spreadsheet and the link to a folder of photos

Spreadsheet has page 1 Row 1 column 1 name of the coins and descriptive texts names of the photographs and the diameter

Program uses the diameter to scale the photograph or more properly a thumbnail of the central round section of the photograph for the first page of the album which lays out the coins and

links to a page that lays out the high-res photos and all of the additional details photos that I gave you in the spreadsheet