Collection Cataloging/Database

I wasn't sure if this was the right thread to put this in.

I've been trying to figure out a system to organize some sort of database so I have reference for figures in my collection. I was just curious how any of you have done it for your own collection? Currently my system is: animal species, brand, item number, years available, short description of the figure.

If you'd like to share your system I would love to see it!

I am in the process of doing this to my own collection. God it's taking a while!

Now I set mine up by how many of each species and sub species and how many in each brand. For example: West African Chimpanzee 11 3 Papo 7 Schleich 1 Bullyland

I rely on my shoeboxes

Which I want to look through as my dream is to see your phenomenal collection.

Advicot wrote:

Which I want to look through as my dream is to see your phenomenal collection.

Good luck

Almost same as yours, I just have some more columns in my XL. It goes like this:
Animal species - brand - item number - years available - country was made - scale - continent - conservation status - store I bought it.
Hmm.. I think I need a shrink..  

My database will be my collection topic once it is finished as I am already provinding these pieces of information in it.

Since I joined this forum, I added a lot of new figurines to my collection. As I posted photos of them in my addition thread, there I have a good overview. But than, there are my figurines in all my shoe boxes...and I see that I´m loosing an overview. Clearly on fish, reptiles an amphibians.
As I am a species collector, I still have a good overview for my mammals and birds, but now, I learn more and more about the different subspecies that could be presented by the figurines...

For me the amount of different species is important and I thought of making an excel-sheet where every page is for one animal class: mammals, birds, reptiles, etc.
In this individual sheets, I will add the different taxonomic groups and than my figurines. I think I will add the informations of the brand and if TAI has the informations: item number and years available (but this will be hard for unknown brands).
As more and more modern companies add more and more species to their range, I think I will also add a section which animals I will replace.

Neat! Paige, I can email you mine if you would like.

I keep mine in an Excel file, with separate tabs for major groups (Insects, Arachnids, Fish, Birds, etc.).

Within a tab, the columns are organized as follows: 1) Latin name, 2) common name, 3) Clade 1 (usually order), 4) Clade 2 (usually family), 5) Manufacturer, 6) Series/Line/Set, and 7) Year

I have each tab set up with a specialized Filter and Sort set to: 1) Clade 1 first, 2) Clade 2 second, and then 3) Latin name. That way figures are organized alphabetically by Latin name within their family and then order.

Mine looks like this. The most important thing is that I record in which box they are stored (or whether they are on display), so I don't lose them.

Its great to see how everyone catalogs! It gives me ideas on how I want to do mine as I proceed.

Blaine you can share a screenshot like rogerpgvg did or email me (do you still have my address?)

Anyhow, again its great to see another way we all are similar and still unique in our collecting habits.

Yes Blaine, a screenshot like rogerpgvg would me help, too :)

I wish I was this organized lol. All I'm doing is taking photos of each figure in my collection and then categorizing them to different albums (wild canines, domestic canines, etc) in my FB group. I include year, brand, and species of animal if I know it. 

Problem with a good percentage of my collection is that I have sooooo many unknown brand figures and I also have so many figures to even document yet. (21 year span) *flops* 

Maybe someday I'll be brave enough to refine my documentation process as much as everyone above!

Mine might be less helpful since my collecting focus is a little different, but in case it's helpful to anyone I'll share it anyhow. It happens that I started collecting while I was in grad school, which primed me to start keeping copious data early. The main tab is this:



Column B is scale bin, which is the scale range a figure falls into after running all the scales through a clustering algorithm. Starting from E, I have the year, the exact scale, the geological period, the oldest and youngest occurrence, and then an array of 0/1 columns for every period of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic, which is useful for diorama purposes (each genus gets a 1 if it occurs in that period and a 0 otherwise).

I have separate tabs where I record other information, such as how I calculated scale in the first place, in case I ever need to adjust it (for example, if more specimens are found or the proportions of a figure prove to be incorrect).

WhiteLightning Wolf wrote:

All I'm doing is taking photos of each figure in my collection and then categorizing them to different albums (wild canines, domestic canines, etc) in my FB group. I include year, brand, and species of animal if I know it. 

That's pretty good. I should really take photos too, but it takes a lot of time.

halichoeres wrote:

the scale range a figure falls into after running all the scales through a clustering algorithm.

I love it, you must have the most scientifically informed database of everyone!

Does anyone know a way to show photos in Excel? I mean you can create a link to a photo, but it doesn't actually show the photo within Excel. Is there a way to see the photo in Excel?

rogerpgvg wrote:

halichoeres wrote:

the scale range a figure falls into after running all the scales through a clustering algorithm.

I love it, you must have the most scientifically informed database of everyone!

Does anyone know a way to show photos in Excel? I mean you can create a link to a photo, but it doesn't actually show the photo within Excel. Is there a way to see the photo in Excel?

I dunno, I bet Blaine has me beat.

It's possible to paste images into Excel cells, but I've only ever done it with equations, not photographs. You go to the top and choose Insert -> Picture and then browse for it. I think it has to be present on your local disk, though. I don't think it can read a web-hosted one.

I do not keep a written list. I use photos in nested folders by maker on my computer. When I get something new it sits in a holding area until I take a photo, then after editing and sorting the photo I put the animal away in storage boxes or leave it on display for a while.
I use the same folder structure to hold sub-folders of images collected off of ebay and other places, and catalog pdf copies and such for reference.

My list of all our Schleich (several thousand) is typed into a very large spreadsheet in Apple Numbers.
I used this list as basis for the contents of our website, which was built in Adobe Dreamweaver. The photos of each animal were only to be seen in our website, not in the list.

As our website is offline now, I would like to add the photos of each model into my list, as well as the various catalogue pictures of each model over the years they were in collection (for variants). This would need to be in cells (1 photo per cell), to keep the spreadsheet ordening option intact.


I guess I would need a database program to do that, as my spreadsheet would become too large for viewing and too slow with that many photos in it? Does anybody have experience with this on an iMac or Macbook? Which program do you use? Any tips?

Mine is : TAW name, Brand, scales

I don't know how those spreadsheet/database programmes work, but my collection's catalogued in three ways already so I don't think I'll ever bother to learn

First of all, I write them in a little hardback notebook, which is kind of sorted into chunks so all of a brand and scale are on pages in certain sections, and I know where to look if I need to check something. They don't have much info in here - just the official name and/or breed they were sold as, or the colour and mould if they're custom painted, and the name I've given them.

Second catalogue is by photograph, on my laptop. Each brand has a folder, split into Original Finish and Custom Painted, and there's a single best photo of each horse, titled with my show-name for it.

The format which stores the most information per model is the third cataloguing method, my website. Actually, two sites, cos on one they're sorted by brand and finish, and on the other by breed.
On this most detailed record, each horse has got a photo, show name, allocated breed and colour info, official release name, the year it was first made, for customs the mould name and who painted it, whether it was a portrait of a real horse, and any extra info for special runs, like where they were sold, and the number made.

Really, I'd like to do a paper copy containing this full info too, just incase the web hosting company ever goes bankrupt, or starts wanting to charge a fee so I have to let it go.
I'm thinking a ringbinder type arrangement would be better than a book next time, as I've already had to tape in a ton of pages to fit more into certain brands and scales, so it would be better to just clip in an extra sheet any time I needed to!

I keep a spreadsheet in my google drive. Each brand has it's own tab.

Except for the schleich tab, the info I keep per each figure is Name - Description - Product Number - Product Specification (regular run/limited edition/other)

The schleich figures get a bit more of an extention with dates of publication/aquisition/retirement and country of manufacturing.

I also use this spreadsheet to keep count of how many figurines I have.

Very interesting to read about it And so nice to see your websites, George, they look great!
Spreadsheets seem like a very logical way to catalog something, but I guess I wouldn't have the patience for updating it regularly I guess? I used to have a spreadsheet for all my blank resins with the color ideas for each of them, but I forgot to update it for a long time.  

I've only recently started cataloging my collection. And for now, the job is done only for my model horses and dogs. Here is the link to my collection on OMHPS, (I hope the link works?) I want to add my cats soon too https://www.omhps.com/Model/List/c9e7268b-e051-43a1-8ba4-4ca1f8db337c

The OMHPS website is really nice because it allows for cataloging collections and participating in many photo shows. Shows are organized by the website creators (OMHPS) and users Part of the fun is also browsing through other user's collections.

Each model is described with the name, scale, material, breed (horses only, as for now any other species falls under the "other animal" category), color, and pattern. It's also possible to add information like production year etc. Users can also add multiple performance photos or scenes to each model
I think for me the shows are quite a motivation to keep my catalogs updated. The dogs for example I only added when I saw a show that included them

I just registered but I see there's a limit of 250 horses on the free accounts, and sadly that's not really any practical use for me - that'd only be about one in six of my showable horses being included
It'd feel a bit pointless and silly entering a show at all when the vast majority of my models which are that breed/colour/brand/finish/material/scale had to sit it out, because I own them but hadn't got room to upload them

The reason my collection's so big is cos my whole hobby budget goes on satisfying the collecting compulsion : being able to buy/paint more horses will always come before paying subscription fees. So premium accounts for websites/photo-hosting/showing just aren't an option for the way my mind works - I'd have to deny myself new releases I want, or deliberately miss chances to get wishlist items, and that'd just make me unhappy and frustrated and full of regrets, heh

I have an excel file with five different sheets (mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, and fish) and within each of those sheets models are organized by Order, Family, Genus, Species, Common Name, Brand, Year of Production, Set/Line, Item Number, and finally, for the moment, location (since my models are in several different places and I don't want to lose track of what is where).

George wrote:

I just registered but I see there's a limit of 250 horses on the free accounts, and sadly that's not really any practical use for me - that'd only be about one in six of my showable horses being included
It'd feel a bit pointless and silly entering a show at all when the vast majority of my models which are that breed/colour/brand/finish/material/scale had to sit it out, because I own them but hadn't got room to upload them

The reason my collection's so big is cos my whole hobby budget goes on satisfying the collecting compulsion : being able to buy/paint more horses will always come before paying subscription fees. So premium accounts for websites/photo-hosting/showing just aren't an option for the way my mind works - I'd have to deny myself new releases I want, or deliberately miss chances to get wishlist items, and that'd just make me unhappy and frustrated and full of regrets, heh

Very understandable! I didn't realize your collection was so big! All the horses must look so amazing all together. Sure, it would be hard having to choose only a small part of your herd for showing.

I've chosen a premium account despite having a rather small collection. Mostly because I know the creators of this website personally, and I know they do it in their free time, they dedicated a lot of work to build this website. And additionally, they host photo shows free for everyone each month. I see this fee as little thanks for their work for us hobbyists.