How do you track the value of your collection?

Not exactly. Today's hype is all about premium examples. Lower graded coins can and do sell for more than a higher grade one when it's a superb example.

As I mentioned though, most of the coins that lost flavor were over-hyped before and the internet exposed that. When your LCS could hype a "key date" and put one out people felt the need to buy, not you take 5 seconds and can find 100s of examples yes the market will be impacted.

With the comparisons to back "then" what we have really seen is just a lot of the nonsense that was exposed and the market has corrected itself now that it is much more transparent in what is and is not available

 

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I try to track costs of bigger purchases, but on this rare occasion, I’ll agree with @CoinCorgi the value of my collection is irrelevant. It’s my hobby and if it ever became about the value, it wouldn’t be fun anymore. I have investment coins, I track those by coin/metal type. I have spreadsheets in excel with a lot of my hobby coins cataloged, but my collection is worth more to me than whatever I could get out of it when I sell, so I don’t see a point in tracking values just to see how much I’m “losing”. If I ever sell any part of my collection, I’ll do my diligent research.

 

I have not sold through auctions as such where cons are concerned...I mainly sold key banknotes and war medals of the Boer war... There were a number od small time flea markets when i was in business and i had the small time dealer come to me and buy stock...Instead of buying 10.00 items, i steered them to 50c or $1 priced items at my wholesale price and pricing them for $5 and under...That way the kids were in it as well...but as their intrest dried up, so did my buyers.... I then used to weigh them up and sell them on ebay by the pound starting at 4.95 with a BIN of 20.00...More often than not, the 4,95 was bid and at the end i would get closer to $35.00 a pound.... I did not care as those stupid fools that killed the BIN ruined it for the rest... I have sold literally thousands of dollars worth on ebay as i price them to sell and not just to come down with no bid....Items like my WW1 medal i have in my picture, i start at 9.95 with a buy it now of 47.00...I have sold many at 47.00 but have needed the ribbon....But there are the few stingy ones that want items for nothing and only bid the first bid...Once again i get close to $100.00 for that WW1 medal so really they only did me a favor by bidding the low price...You see i have learnt to play these silly bidders at their game...I still think as the average buyer wants quantity and not quality, that listing half a pound or 1 pounds worth of coins is the best way to go....

 

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I disagree wit you as our grandparents were too busy surviving the 2 large wars and buying food on the black market for the family to eat

 

I collect for fun. Don't care about worth. Let my kids worry about it.

 

I stopped caring what my collection was worth decades ago.

 

I have not stopped worrying about what it is worth but i wont let my kids worry about it...I rather sell it all at a loss that leave a penny to them...They dont want to talk or contact me, so they dont need a thing from me... Ever heard of the saying do unto others as they do unto you???

 

I should have also said that the tracking I do on my spreadsheet is not for my benefit, it's for my wife so she will have some idea of the value of each coin and not get ripped off after I've departed this world.

 

If they ask, just tell them you are spending their inheritance. I never hear from my 4 children either but that's what I'd tell them.

 

There were still plenty of collectors. Every generation has had wars

 

95% of my 'collection is just silver bullion of various types - 90% 'constitutional' halves, quarter and dimes, .999 silver bars and rounds, sterling silver items bought well below melt, etc. - I do have about 100 unremarkable silver dollars and a few tubes of older Barber coins in AG-VG condition and dateless Standing Liberty quarters and the usual accumulations of 40% Kennedy halves and 35% war nickels, byproducts of buying mixed lots on eBay -
I keep track of them on individual Google Sheets (free spreadsheets) pages - My headings are: date, seller, spot price, cost, total grams of coins, total troy oz. of silver, cost per troy oz., % premium above spot, quantity, description and cumulative troy ounces of silver - the formulas for calculated columns save input time - I print out pages as they become full or at year end, whichever comes first.
The rest of my humble collection, miscellaneous world coins, Indian head cents, 1921 Mercs and 1932 quarters plus Secret Santa presents and lord M's & Noah Finney's recent lucky ha'penny are stored in flips inside a couple of fancy old wooden cigar boxes - the cigar box stuff maintains its value unchanged, but the bulk silver bullion value can be estimated by simple arithmetic (total troy ounces x silver spot price) - sample sheet pdf below

 

I use a spreadsheet and track this information: Date of the coin, type of coin, Grade, Seller (who I bought it from), Date Purchased, Mintage, Purchase Price, and for slabbed coins I include the TPG name and TPG certification number.

 

It's wise to keep good records. There may be taxes to pay someday. I bought the Coin Elite program many years ago. It saved me a lot of time. It has a built in price guide that you can buy updates for each year, if you wish. I don't trust any price guide but it's better than me trying to keep the values updated. I'll look at auction results if I need a better idea of value.
http://www.trovesoftware.com/coineliteglance.html

 

Wow, people on this thread have some good points. I use Numismedia.com and click the Collector FMV Prices link. Just gives me a ballpark of what I have. It is all in an Excel spreadsheet.

 

I track with an excel spreadsheet for 2 reasons: I have insurance on my collection and want to know what I lost if something happens to it. Additionally, if I randomly die, i want my wife to have a rough estimate of the value of the collection. I updated the list in 2018 and try to add my pieces to it as I acquire them. I would guess I have 85% of my collection listed on the spreadsheet.

 

excel - one page for each denomination, one page for miscellaneous, one page for special coins, one for scrap

 

I add up face value then divide by 2.

 

Yours seems to be Americas focused. I once (5+ years ago) learned of a program that would import an excel document and track your entire world coin collection, has all the Krause catalogs, and will tell you the coins you're missing. If I could just find the darn name of it!

 

I've always been fascinated by this idea that something belongs to a child simply because it belonged to a parent. Forgive my naivety as I grew up rather poor and received no inheritance from my mother when she passed and will receive little to nothing from my father when he passes. I personally see getting an inheritance as a blessing and not a right. I've already started putting money away for my children, but I think I'll do my best not to let them know it exists because I want them to grow into a world where they're self reliant (not that just because people get an inheritance means they're not or anything).

Also, I'm very sorry to hear that you and @oz_in_ohio do not hear from your children. As someone who made a choice not to contact my mother because she became toxic to my life, my only suggestion would be that maybe you reach out to them and keep the door open for a relationship down the road. It's a shame that someone should die alone, or that people lose connection with their families.

 

For me coins are just a hobby. My investments are in stocks and bonds. However, I keep track of the coins on an excel spreadsheet - by denomination or type, where I got them, how much I paid, etc. along with a picture that I save from the listing. I have done this all along and it is quite a lot of info. If I had to start from scratch, it would be an formidable task that probably wouldn't be worth the effort. As far as value, I doubt I have made anything on them - certainly judging by the various PCGS indices.