Cataloging Question

[gjw]

Hello all, say, I was wondering how many of you catalog your collections?

If you do, what methods do you use and what information do you annotate?

Thanks so much!

Greg

[1812 Overture]

I have a five-story glass cabinet. . The first floor houses the Vatican and Austro-Hungarian medal orders.
The second tier holds the medal order for the other three Confederate nations of WW1.
On the third floor there are some medals from Europe, Asia and Africa
The fourth floor holds the medal bar and the large order of crosses with boxes
On the fifth floor are my grandfather's relics, some medals from North Korea and China. .
Now I still think I should buy a 6-storey cabinet!

[Gordon Craig]

Greg,

 

Some years ago I came  across page in a militaria book that I copied and used as the template for cataloguing my collections.  In the upper left hand corner I enter some letter combination that identifies the specific collection; ie WG for West German; EG for East German; POL for Polish etc.  I might also add a designator to differentiate a uniform, or a medal depends on just which collection I am cataloguing.  I use a four digit number to identify the individual item. Here is a scan of a blank document I created to catalogue a collection.  I put these documents in a three ring binder labelled for the country.  The binder itself I divide into sections on reference material ie items I've found on the internet but are not in my collection; items in my collection.  In the section listing items in my collection I have page where I list each item in that section by number (WG-0001) and a short title indicating what the item is.  On this page I also enter the location of all the items.  For example Drawer 1 or shelf 1.  The rest of the page is self evident.  If I run out of space in one category on the page I just keep writing in the next one.  All items do not require an entry in all categories.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Regards,

 

Gordon

Regards,

 

Gordon

  

[gjw]

Hi, I think we got our wires crossed.  What I mean is, do you have a method like a computer spreadsheet or notebook that you annotate where your awards were gotten, etc

 

Thanks so much however, would love to see your collection!

 

Best,

 

Greg

[gjw]

Hey Gordon,  that's what I was looking for.  I think, I'll do up something similar.

 

Thanks again so much!!!

 

Greg

[JohanH]

I can recommend a software called Recollector. It does basically the same thing as Gordons template. 

 

Recollector (collectingcatalog.com)

 

 

[Elmar Lang]

When started collecting, i was 13 years old then, my father (a collector himself, but in a different field), advised me to keep a written, chronological register of anything entering in my own collection. In other words, a sort of an "entry-book" not much different from what Howard Carter held, entering each finding from King Tutankhamen's tomb. 

Now, 51 years later, i have a large cardboard box, full of many different booklets, with a short description, date of purchase, price, provenance, and, when necessary, personal notes on each piece. 

I feel myself lucky, because although being not a boy anymore, still I can remember everything about my pieces. But I need to say that reading those old entry-books is a pleasant thing, taking my memory back to the circumstances where a piece became mine, or simply remembering and refreshing the memory about the people and fellow collectors I met in the course of time. 

Around 1977, my father presented to me a book, work of Prof. Vaclav Měřička, ("The Book of Orders and Decolations", London, Hamlyn), where the author -an immense collector himself- provided a layout of his own cataloguing cards. Extremely useful too. 

Collecting, to me is not just putting pieces together, knowing the whys and wherefores about their institution and award criteria, but also the pleasure (and disappointments) in increasing my collection; remembering the persons I met, the travels and... adventures that also a quiet collector can live. 

My wife, very skilled in the use of computers, in 2005 created a programme, that practically was an enlarged version of Prof. Měřička's cards (added with pictures), but still, I stick to my useful, old system of "entry books", while my wife is pleased to register the "core" of my collection only. 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Elmar Lang

[Great Dane]

I'm using ReCollector too and I love it!

Very flexible and customizable.

 

So much better than my old home-grown MS Access solution.

[JohanH]

I think it was thanks to Great Dane that I found out about ReCollector.  I believe he wrote about it in a earlier post that caught my attention. 

 

It's a great program!

 

 

So thank you Great Dane!