How do you, you personally, catalog your ancients in your collection.

Ok, I know I am new to ancients, and what a fun ride this has been and it just keeps getting better. I have been picking up one here, one there, two there. I have a total of about 15 now. Yeah they are mostly on the lower end, nothing over $100 yet. But hey you can have a lot of fun pretty cheap in Ancients so I have learned.

I do lack focus, that's for sure, but I have certainly had fun with what I have purchased. Sometimes when researching the coin, the emperor, or the story behind it, I get lost for hours. Some thing make me smile, some thing make me go hmm, that's interesting and some make me go, what the h*** did I just read? Seriously, this happened back then?

Anyway, US coins and most world easy. Year, Denomination, Mint then anything funky after that if your tracking die variety, errors etc.

Right now, I bought nice Lighthouse Grand Binder. With some 2 x 2 storage holders, then I put my ancient coins in 2x2 milar flips, with a tag, telling me what the coin is, and obverse and reverse. How much paid for it. Then that's it. There is only so much to put on a flip.

However I would like to create a computer record for reference, like I have this coin with this ID, here is the story about the coin. Way more info than what will fit on a flip, and a picture of the coin as well. Also a way to link coins as some coins just go together. Husband and wife, mother and son, grand mother, Caesar then Augustus.

So how do you go about tracking your ancients and cataloging your personal collection?

I know that some people use a numbering system, I am not sure if I am allowed to say so won't give any names, or super specifics. However, I noticed purchasing from some people on this forum, I see a numbering system on the flip when I receive the coin which also matches what I seen on the discussion on the coin. Which is smart, and so they must have a system. I did recently win a CNG auction, which the flip came with Auction and Lot number. Agin organized by what the needed. Which makes me think others must have a system that works for them. So instead of trying to recreate the wheel I figured I would ask how you guys do it. I am sure the answers will vary wildly.

 

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I use Microsoft Access and give every coin a unique ID number. All useful information is in my database.

 

Do you just let access generate the number or do you have a numbering scheme?

 

In hindsight I should have let Accrss generate the number but I have to enter it in. The coins are ordered in rank of purchase.

 

I keep it simple. The coins are arranged by RIC or RPC number, kept in paper envelopes stored in coin boxes. I have a digital database and print off a photo of each coin. The photos are arranged in binders by RIC/RPC number.

I'm a specialist and keep a hand written list of coins I need to add to the collection. Once a desired coin is acquired it is crossed off the list.

My advice, don't over think it.

 

I keep a spreadsheet with all of the information on. I use a word template to print out my flips which go into an index box. (Cut and paste keeps things simple.) I keep my coins in trays after finding that binders were unsatisfactory (for me). My records have a unique number for each coin, starting with the year the coin was either bought or identified. So the first coin I bought or identified in 2016 was 2016-0001.

Most importantly, I keep photos online as well as my computer. If the house is robbed and they take the coins, they will likely take the laptop also. Having a record of your coins online is worth a thousand descriptive works.

And after working with IT for around 30 years, don't trust it! Make sure that you backup your data to another device.

If I could find a suitable database, I would probably use it.

 

I use Microsoft Excel. As everyone else here has said, keep all the information you can on each coin. Purchase place, date of purchase, vendor, and cost in addition all the info on the coins. Good luck whichever way you decide to go.

 

I'm curious what everybody is going to answer, for I'm always in two minds about the system I'm going to adopt. But so far I kept record of most of my coins, just in Word, and I have pictures of them.

 

The best method is whatever works for you. If you only have a few coins, anything works. If you are going to add substantially to your collection, you should thing it through before it becomes a huge task to implement your system. At the beginning, always add to much info. It is much easier to delete what you don't want, rather than having to update a lot of records if you change your mind.

 

I assign each coin two numbers. One is sequential with 0001 being first and 9999 being the last one I'll buy if I live that long. The other number will sort the coins into an order I like. I have modified my numbers here several times but currently start with a two digit letter code RA being Roman Republic and RZ being Byzantine. Other R_ sets divide up the rest of Roman making sure that they fall in alpha order according to the way I want them to sort. I combine the two numbers with a two digit separator that means nothing but will allow sorting for it as long as those letters are not also used for the other headers. For example:
RS0800FD0039 is the 39th coin I bought but sorts into the Severan section near allowing the start. In the beginning I keep numbers separated by a lot on that first section so the next one used after 0800 might be 8000 leaving a ridiculous spacing but you may get interested in a specialty and someday want room for a lot of Falling Horsemen or Otho aureii depending on your situation and it is easier to have spaces than to add them later.
My FD might be meaningless or it might be a place to code in where you got the coin or how much you paid or the year you got it. It is your system. Create! I have been considering taking time off from other coin activities and renumbering my sort sections but that is a lot of work when you have too many coins. I really do like the way my coins sort themselves by their file numbers but I failed to leave enough spaces for some areas when I first started so I have a few places that need to be redone. I have my photos on a Nook that I carry to coin shows in the attempt to avoid buying duplicates. My Spreadsheet and Database lists have the numbers in separate cells so I can sort by either. When inputting, I have it sorted by the order of acquisition number (0039) but when reviewing what I have, I sort by the 'sort' code (RS0800). This may seem like overkill to you when you have 30 coins but it will make more sense at 3000. The hard part is the decisions how YOU want things to sort. Do you want all silver before all bronzes or coins in order of date within a reign? Do you want Rome mint followed by branch mints or mints west to east? Do you want Greek cities sorted Alphabetically or all the coins of Sicily together following Italy and before Thrace? Do Provincials go all together between Greek and Roman or are they split up in Roman by ruler? Once you have all the decisions, the coding is easy. I doubt anyone here would like the decisions I would make because relatively few here have as many coins of Septimius Severus as they do of all Greeks. The system best suited for a collector who has 5000 Roman Republican bronzes and no late Romans would be very different, too.

Database fields? That is a different subject and every bit as complex. Good luck with your journey into cataloging.

 

I just started to number my coins, between 1000 and 9999 (I have about 600), 1000 is Greek, 2000 Roman, 8000 Islam, for instance. But I also keep track of their weight in 0,01 grams, that helps identifying difficult coins fast. For instance when a tray falls on the ground...

 

I have a perhaps overly-complicated system that I use in a database. Each number starts with 01 (for ancient) or 02 (for medieval), and in theory my other coins would go from 03-05, but I've not catalogued them. Depending on which category I'm in (01 or 02) my numbering can be different, but it generally follows this pattern:

01-(kingdom abbreviation)-(ruler/issuer)-(metal)-(Denomination)-(number)

So, 01-BA-Menander I-AR-DR-01 = Ancient, Bactrian, King Menander I, Silver Drachm #1
Or
02-IVen-Pietro Ziani-AR-G-01 = Medieval, Italy/Venice, Doge Pietro Ziani, Silver Grosso #1

The drawback to my system is the coins aren't organized chronologically, which is how I like to display them. And if I ever decide to go crazy and specialize in a particular type (say English short cross pennies), my differentiating by number at the end will not be useful. But it works well for me so far

 

Thanks everyone, this has given me some great ideas some things I never thought about and some great ways to do things.

Like I said I am not very far into Ancients but I can see it becoming a lot bigger and I figured a good time to come up with a good system is sooner rather than later.

 

I have binders and boxes with almost no organization whatsoever. I have managed to put all my ancients in one binder with receipts in the front pocket.

 

Biggest takeaway here @JeffsRealm is start cataloging now while your collection is small. You can always tweak the info later. When I finally sat down and started working on cataloging my token collection it was after it had grown to some two hundred different pieces. It took a while to get through it all and felt like a chore.