Collection mngt. checklist ideas for proof and key date collections

Post-retirement I decided to FOCUS continuation of Dad (RIP) & my young days collecting of proof coins, continuing and finishing modern denominations 1 cent to dollar current to date. I'm in the process of transferring coins from seven old brown Dansco (slide) albums to Lighthouse Quadrum Intercept square snaps bindered into encap pages and realizing...this is a LOT of coins to keep track:

Proof cents have 1956-mid 2000's...need to complete modern and early Lincoln proofs, errors, keys, varieties;
Proof nickels have 1956-2011...need too complete modern Jeffs and variety moderns;
Proof dimes have 1950-2011...need to complete Roosev. moderns, keys, varieties;
Proof quarters have 1951-present; need early Wash. proofs and keys;
Proof halves have 1950-2011...need to complete moderns, varieties and keys.
Proof large dollars have 2071-2078...need to complete Anthony/Saq dollar moderns proofs and keys.

When modern design denominations are complete I would like to (have already slightly) move BACKWARD IN TIME systematically to earlier designs in each (or select) denominations targeting proofs in the addition of key dates.

Is there a collection organizational management system, practice or checklist method I could use to keep track of all this? I'm old-skool and don't necessarily want to have my head buried in PC spreadsheets but need something better than check marks, highlighting and scribbles in the margins of my large-print format Redbook.

Thanks for any ideas.

 

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You would prefer to do this in pencil/pen on paper rather than a spreadsheet like Excel? I don't understand that but it's your preference. So, you might try an old-fashioned account clerk's ledger book. The problem I see with this is, due to the hard binding of these books, you can't just change something.

Maybe a better choice would be a 3-ring binder setup. You could design and print out pages that have your preferred format and then ink in what you need. This way if you need to change a listing or whatever, you only have to rewrite one or maybe two pages. This kind of paper record requires really thinking out your format carefully ahead of time.

 

"don't necessarily..." does not mean rejecting a method outright. IF it's one that determines to serve my needs best, considering the time, effort and expense I'm putting into preservation of the coins...then so be it. I still do a LOT of stuff pen to paper/ledger BUT when needed I still bow to technology when it's in my best interest. Luddite I'm not.

 

Go to Liberty and get checklists.
Collector Checklists • Liberty Coin (libertycoinservice.com)

 

If you use Excel (highly recommended), a quick way to get a date listing in a series is via the PCGS registry. For example, suppose you want a date, mint and major variety listing of Lincoln cents through 1964. Go to Lincoln Cents Classic Set, Circulation Strikes (1909-1964). Click on Set Composition near the upper right. A table will appear with the data. In the lower left corner, the number of coins in the set appears, and you can choose how may coins to list on a page. Because there are 156 coins in this set, you’ll want to select 250 coins per page. Copy the table to a spreadsheet. Delete the weight and bonus columns, and you’re left with the date, mint and major variety listing.

Or you can enter the 156 pieces of data one by one manually.

Cal

 

Cal, This is REALLY interesting via the PCGS Registry as they already have the exact collections (and sub collections) already set up...for instance my largest core collection...
Set Composition: Washington Quarters Basic Set, Proof (1936-Present)
The set has 304 (!!) entries in the entire series. I knew it was a lot but that alone is a whopper amount of coins to keep track and document. I'm not interested in assembling sets to "register" BUT the data alone is monumental. Now to figure out how to transfer the table to LibraOffice CALC spreadsheets. Got trained in that (Excel) at work before I retired but never used the software so it's start fresh teaching old dogs new tricks again and appears to be worth my while for a collections the size I have. Publius2 would be proud

 

You were right Publius2...Cal's suggestion showed that MUCH of the basic data work is already done for me for proof collections as well as varieties...I can cherry-pick and copy/paste out keys for sub collections...and this also makes setting up my binder "coin" spacing in advance much easier. Also gave me the brainstorm of using white fine point Sharpie markers to write date etc info on my Quadrum Interept snaps in the binders. When the mind reels...there is no stopping me. Thanks guys and Coin-Talk!!!

 

To copy a set composition table from the PCGS registry to your spreadsheet:

1. Make sure all the data you want is on the page. Look in the lower left corner to see how many rows of data exist. You can change the number rows per page with the Show option also in the lower left corner.

2. Using the mouse, highlight the data. Note you will be highlighting entire rows. No way to avoid this with most browsers.

3. Right-click the highlighted area and chose copy from the menu. Alternately, press ctrl-C on the keyboard. This action puts the table in the clipboard.

4. Choose an empty area on the spreadsheet that can accommodate all the rows of data plus at least 4 columns of data. Right click on the upper left corner of this area.

5. The following may vary a bit for different brands of spreadsheet:

From the menu that appears, paste may be an option that you can use (alternately ctrl-V from the keyboard). This will paste the data into the spreadsheet along with the html formatting (and maybe more) used on the webpage.

The html formatting (and maybe more) may be undesirable and hard to change. I highly recommend that when you right click on the area in the spreadsheet that if the spreadsheet offers an option to paste the data as plain text, use that option. May appear as paste text, paste options or paste special in the menu. If you bring in the data as plain text, any formatting will be your own, and you won’t bring in undesirable links and other trash.

Delete any columns of data, like weights and bonuses, that you don’t want to keep.

Cal

 

Can't find squat re Clipboard...found settings and brought up clipboard but nothing gets pasted there other than 3 rows...3 different methods to open, copy/paste and work with Clipboard do absolutely nothing. There's ALWAYS a hitch trying to figure out new techy stuff which is why I shy away from it so often.

Update: Figured this out working in the LibreOffice CALC spreadsheet program...just a matter of stuff called different things, clicking around and seeing what happens. Deleted unnecessary columns/numbers and have Wash. quarter spreadsheet pasted and saved. Wonderful...!