• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Help? Anyone got a Filemaker or Excel template for traking your collection?
0

Started by Room 237,

20 posts in this topic

garthgantu

garthgantu

Posted
Posted

I'm happy to email you my Excel template, though I'm not sure you'll wanna use it... it's pretty basic. Columns for "Box #," "Title," "Issue #," "Condition," and value based on the past few years' OS Guides... You could easily add more columns for notes of various kinds.

 

Best thing about this approach, IMHO, is the ability to sort all the data in myriad ways. It's easy to look at all the first issues, or all the books in NM 9.4 and above, or all the books worth more than $XXX...

 

Garth

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Elvis

Elvis

Posted
Posted
Does anyone have a good template for microsoft access?

 

I think fantastic_four mentioned, that he uses this software?

 

Funny you should mention it because i just found this about 2 weeks ago. I have not had a chance to really get into it but seems to be a pretty damn good Access template for comics. And best of all... ITS FREE! Not sure who this dealer is though...

 

http://home.att.net/~rarecomics/download.htm

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Aman619

Aman619

Posted
Posted

choosing between Excel and Filemaker is a tough one. Data bases do some things better tha spreadsheets. But spreadsheets calculate a lot faster than Filemaker and thats a real advantage with 10000+plus items. But Excel default layout is boring and will be unwieldy to work with due to the depth of all the rows you will be using. Whereas Filemaker can output the data you sort for in any layout you create for any need: total paid and profit per book or title; or inventory w/o paid info for giving for a dealer when selling. You include just the fields/columns you choose to show.

 

Then again, a good Excel programmer can create a very elegant and thorough database-like solution that does all of the above as well as a database. But, it may cost you $1000s to create it as detailed and perfect as you want.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
murph0

murph0

Posted
Posted

I haven't had this software for a while b/c I stopped keeping track of my collection online due to time constraints and the fact that my computer kept messing up.. but I've always thought Realms of Wonder was an excellent collection tracking program. For 15 dollars you get any update to the software the guy makes, and he's very active in trying to keep making it more and more efficient. Website is here

 

Brian

Link to comment
Share on other sites
fantastic_four

fantastic_four

Posted
Posted
But spreadsheets calculate a lot faster than Filemaker and thats a real advantage with 10000+plus items.

 

Why's that? Does FileMaker suck that badly? In general, databases should be faster at retrieving the data from disk than Excel would be, and the disk accesses take longer than the calculations do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
fantastic_four

fantastic_four

Posted
Posted
Funny you should mention it because i just found this about 2 weeks ago. I have not had a chance to really get into it but seems to be a pretty damn good Access template for comics. And best of all... ITS FREE! Not sure who this dealer is though...

 

http://home.att.net/~rarecomics/download.htm

 

My data entry forms are web-based and not a part of the database, so this is probably a better "template" to take than mine is. Plus mine has some proprietary business rules in it that I may eventually turn into a web-based comic book business, and ripping those rules out to make it appropriate as a template would take some time.

 

I'm currently in the process of moving the business-related parts of the database over to SQL Server (or eventually MySQL if SQL Server web hosting keeps being too expensive), and I'll leave the functionality to manage my personal collection in Access. After I'm done with that (which probably won't be for 6-12 months) my Access database would probably be sharable with other people.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Midnight8992-migration

Midnight8992-migration

Posted
Posted

[quote

Funny you should mention it because i just found this about 2 weeks ago. I have not had a chance to really get into it but seems to be a pretty damn good Access template for comics. And best of all... ITS FREE! Not sure who this dealer is though...

 

http://home.att.net/~rarecomics/download.htm

 

Awesome. I wasn't looking forward to trying to make this myself!

 

Thanks 893applaud-thumb.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Aman619

Aman619

Posted
Posted
But spreadsheets calculate a lot faster than Filemaker and thats a real advantage with 10000+plus items.

 

Why's that? Does FileMaker suck that badly? In general, databases should be faster at retrieving the data from disk than Excel would be, and the disk accesses take longer than the calculations do.

 

 

No--Filemaker is great and finds searched very fast..maybe faster than Excel. BUT I meant specifically "calculating"...doing the math, like adding up the total value of 5000 comics when each comics values involves a formula that takes into consideration # of copies x grade (which is a lookup value) x spread (which is necessary more and more since just plugging Overstreet NM value isnt enough anymore if some book's VF value is half of NM and others are 35%!! Some of the spreads on keys noeadays are 1:3:20, or 1:3:15 not the uniform 1:3:10 anymore. They are all over the map)

 

So Filemaker chugs along when asked to come up with a total that entails all these calculations, whereas Excel , well, excels at it!!!

 

So its a choice going in: fast total values, or very-detailed fast searches! Sorry I wasnt clearer before. I suppose if you dont expect the software to compute values, just add them up, then theres no problem either way.....but the key advantage of software to keep track of you collection is to have it crunch the numbers and tell you the estimated paper value= of it, as well as all the details of each purchase and sale, condition, grade, notes genre etc...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Krismusic

Krismusic

Posted
Posted
On 6/19/2003 at 1:02 AM, highlite23 said:

OK, it's not FREE...but i really like this program.

 

Comic Collectors

I have the mobile version I bought it many years back its ok really good for modern collectors as you can scan the bar code and it added the book to your list but the mobile version doesn't allow info such as grade and pricing etc.. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
0
Go to topic listing