Track Collection of Cards

[SrLouie]

Hello all,

it's been a wild month since I got started and I feel like I'm getting burn out already. The hunt of cards never goes away and feels good. Now the part that is burning me out is tracking all the cards I have.

Like i mention a month ago I just started collecting again since I was a kid. I had my father and sister pass away and found out they had multiple boxes of cards. My brother were going to trash it but they knew I use to collect them and offered them to me. Well I received 11 box of 5000 count full of wax one and other cards I never seen before. Even found some 1965 cards .

I tried the whole excel way like most people mention, and found some templates to use. The issue is it takes a lot of my time trying to figure out what kind of card they are and i just started purchasing cards as well.

I sorted one boxs by check list that took for ever. I have so many cards to still look over. My goal is to keep some for myself and maybe sell some down the road. Today I found a video on card dealer pro . Seem easy and fast to scan plus export a list of all your cards. I'm not ready to sell the card but I think I can still us the feature on getting a list of all my cards.

If you guys dont mind me asking how do you collector that tone of cards keep track of what you have.

Any kind of help would be great.

[PapaStu]

I think you need to sort the cards before you go and start cataloging them to any degree. Trying to do both at the same time and you'll never get anywhere and just burn out before you get through half of those 5 row boxes. Get a sorting tray or two if you're going to try and see what kind of sets there are and that'll help with the second half of the process when you get to that point.

Have you decided how you want to collect again? Set building, team building, focusing on a (or a few) player(s)? Again, a massive amount of cards should mean little overall if it doesn't fit into your plan for what you want to collect. I'd venture a guess that more of it will be junk wax and not worth much effort to sort.

Regardless of what you do, it's going to take time to go through them. There isn't a way around it.

[towerymt]

I don't have any great suggestions for 5,000 count boxes, other than to write notes and label the boxes as you go through them. I have far fewer cards than that and I will end up going through stacks of top loaders multiple times. Unfortunately you may think about better ways to sort the cards only after you've gone through some of them once, so label what's in each box and that should help you later.

I buy & sell, so I keep a spreadsheet (google sheet) of everything I buy so that I can track sales:

PURCHASE DATE
SOLD DATE (status 'INV' for inventory, until sold)
YR (card year)
SET (ie, Topps, Topps Chrome Sapphire, etc)
VARIATION (ie, SP, Blue Refractor, Gold Refractor Auto, etc)
PLAYER
GRADE ("RAW" or the grade if graded by third party grader, ie "PSA-9")
PRICE
CERT # (blank if raw, else the cert number from the graded card holder)
SERIAL # (blank, else card serial number)
GRADE $ (if I send the card for grading, I record the grading cost)
SALE PRICE (take this from ebay transactions page, so it will include shipping charged to buyer)
EBAY FEE (usually ebay fee for me, but could be myslabs fee or other seller fee)
PAYPAL FEE (now that ebay processes payments, this column is usually 0.00 unless I sell on myslabs or via other method where paypal is accepted)
SHIP COST (I record exact postage costs. I track supplies expenses elsewhere)
PROFIT/LOSS (formula, sale price minus all costs. generally something I look at on a per-player basis, or for an entire year for all players. If I fill the formula for all rows, then I will filter on SOLD DATE to only show sold cards)
FROM (where I bought it, ebay, myslabs, card show, etc)
SOLD VIA (ebay, etc)
LOCATION (physical location -- I don't maintain this)

I have stacks of commons or low-value semi-star cards that are not tracked in my sheet. They mostly came from boxes I opened. You could do something like enter one row for a particular grouping of cards...like 1965 cards, and then note the location (box number 6, rows 2 and 3...something like that). Up to you what makes sense and will help you keep track of it all.

Anyone have any other data points that they track for each card?

[Big35Hurt]

I've been going through what I have and entering this into a spreadsheet. To get ahead of things, I sorted the cards by the year they were issued and then by manufacturer. I took it a step further and sorted those by line (example Topps, Topps Finest, Topps Chrome, etc). As far what I am entering into the spreadsheet, I am including year, manufacturer, line, card #, a checkbox if it's a patch, insert, parallel, or auto, as well as fields to capture the serial # and out of how many. The last column is notes. Most of my cards were purchased 5-35 years ago and some were pack pulled, so I have no idea what my landed cost is for each (and really don't care). Current value is not something I am going to worry about unless I can get to the point where it automatically updates from one of the sites.

Honestly wish there was an easier way to do it. It's a very time-consuming process, but it gives me the chance to enjoy seeing cards that have sat in boxes for years as well as give me an idea of what I have.

[Skipscards]

Keep track?

[sportzking]

I used to keep track of my cards on Excel as well. But it’s counterintuitive to list every base card and low value inserts, it will take forever. I’ve switched the online part to TCDB. It’s great as a database but lacking in pricing, but you can input how much you paid, date, etc.

[hammertime]

I have a spreadsheet for tax purposes, but use VCP and the set registry to track my actual "collection".

[asujbl]

Registry

I also only collect PSA so it’s super easy

[towerymt]

Originally Posted by asujbl

Registry

I also only collect PSA so it’s super easy

I was struggling with one task I attempted recently: reconcile what's in one of my registry sets with what's physically located together in one box.

The objective is to group all registry set cards into one physical box. Then identify any cards that I own that haven't been added to my PSA inventory (and to my registry set).

When I view my registry set, the default view shows all entries having a cert# at the top, then all the rest of the ~800 cards in the particular player set which I do not own. I didn't see an easy way to work with just the list of cards I own from this one particular player set. Any suggestions?

I exported the entire list to CSV and noticed it's not exporting in the order it is displayed. So I imported to a google sheet and here I can filter & sort.

I'm wondering if you can add anything about how you manage the two: the virtual list in the registry + the physical slabs.

Thanks.

[dherm360]

I have boxes and boxes that I have no idea what is in them

[Mightymango]

TCDB.com (trading card database) is what I use.

This question seems to come up often but that seems to be something that works for me.

[BaseRookieCards]

Originally Posted by Mightymango

TCDB.com (trading card database) is what I use.

This question seems to come up often but that seems to be something that works for me.

This. I use all of the above. I keep track of everything on a spreadsheet. Graded in the SGC, CGC, and PSA apps... nothing for BGS. And all my singles in a spreadsheet.

Except for my Kirby Puckett and Brad Radke PCs. For that I use this database. It's almost like a checklist. Then I can see what I need. It's magnificent.

[BaseRookieCards]

Originally Posted by dherm360

I have boxes and boxes that I have no idea what is in them

Ha! That actually sounds like fun. My OCD would never allow me to do it, but I have fantasies about random boxes of goodness. I live a very dull life. Lol.

[Rage]

Originally Posted by dherm360

I have boxes and boxes that I have no idea what is in them

A fellow man of culture 👏

[tonedef2oo8]

That’s a lot of words to say “ what do I invest in hold my hands”

[SrLouie]

Hello all,

thank you all for the good advice and tips on how I should go about it sorting these cards. i been looking over the cards and started taking out players I like when I was a kid. Nolan R, Mark McGwire , etc... Have a lot of players but I also started a a set build from check list.

I more into the vintage cards up to the 1980's before the junk wax era. Talking about the junk wax era I notice there are some good cards I should be looking for. Is there some kind of list of players I should look for during the 80 and 90's? I don't know all the players I know just the most common ones since I didn't watch to much tv when i was young. I think that's another issue I have is now knowing all the players like most people on here. they remember stats years and other stuff about players. I just know then by pix or some by name. Plus since I'm a must older now memory is some time bad on players that I might miss one.

what would be nice is having some kind of list of players I should look out for. That way if I come across there card I can pull them out.

Once again thanks for the help.