How do you keep track of your collection?

Mr Grumpy · Post by **Mr Grumpy** » Sat Dec 10, 2016 9:45 am

I'm not an expert excel user but when you create a list like this,
make sure that all cells in a column are formatted the same.

As an example, the column containing the record number looks to sometimes contain
letters of the alphabet combined with numbers. Excel will format that as plain text
while the numbers will be formatted as numeric - you can tell because it right justifies
the numbers. If you do this AND make sure that there are no blank cells,
you should be able to sort your list by any column heading you want by selecting
the sort option. So if you ever want a list by manufacturer, just sort by that column.

This may not be true of the latest and greatest versions of excel, as they may have addressed
these issues?

CMcPherson · Post by **CMcPherson** » Sat Dec 10, 2016 10:48 am

Thanks Vince for the reminder.
I'm fairly competent with Excel but am trying to figure out what info most collectors like to keep.

bfinan11 · Post by **bfinan11** » Sat Dec 10, 2016 4:11 pm

CMcPherson wrote:
bfinan11 wrote:I just use a very large spreadsheet with everything in it. One thing I regret is only keeping the song titles for the A sides though...
That example is very helpful... thank you!
A few questions for clarification if you don't mind:
What does the double xx in column 1 denote? Is that just a personal notation rather than record info?
Are the numbers in column 2 your own inventory numbers?
And if so, why not keep your list alphabetical by artist name instead? I'm not suggesting that you should mind you, just want to learn why you more experience guys do things a certain way.
Column 10 that has either (mostly 1) or 2, what does that indicate?
I am only trying to get a better idea of what info that collectors keep track of.
I would rather begin keeping all permanent info now rather than regretting latter.

The double XX in column 1 represents records that I have played one (X) or two (XX) sides of, and recorded the audio

Column 2 is my inventory, and is primarily useful because when the records have sleeves, I physically number them. It made a lot more sense when there were 500 records, than 11000.

And as for why it's in that order, because I just added those records. It's a spreadsheet, and is completely sortable.

Column 10 is how many records are in the set. By default, it's 1. Album sets can, obviously, have larger numbers, anywhere from 2 to, in the largest sets I have, 24.

The column I regret not having, which I think I mentioned already, is the other sides of the single records!

bfinan11 · Post by **bfinan11** » Sat Dec 10, 2016 4:15 pm

Mr Grumpy wrote:Excel will format that as plain text
while the numbers will be formatted as numeric - you can tell because it right justifies
the numbers.

This is true. However, is there any situation where one would sort by record number as a primary sort? Victor 35501, Columbia 35502, G&T 7-35503, etc is not at all useful in my experience. Likewise, most of the time one wouldn't want to discard, or ignore, prefixes. You would end up with, for example, Columbia A- and E- series mixed up in one, or 5000-series one-sided Victors lumped with 21-5000 series 50s country. As long as every record with a prefix has it in the spreadsheet, it should be helpful.

CMcPherson · Post by **CMcPherson** » Sat Dec 10, 2016 5:30 pm

bfinan11 wrote:
CMcPherson wrote:
bfinan11 wrote:I just use a very large spreadsheet with everything in it. One thing I regret is only keeping the song titles for the A sides though...
That example is very helpful... thank you!
A few questions for clarification if you don't mind:
What does the double xx in column 1 denote? Is that just a personal notation rather than record info?
Are the numbers in column 2 your own inventory numbers?
And if so, why not keep your list alphabetical by artist name instead? I'm not suggesting that you should mind you, just want to learn why you more experience guys do things a certain way.
Column 10 that has either (mostly 1) or 2, what does that indicate?
I am only trying to get a better idea of what info that collectors keep track of.
I would rather begin keeping all permanent info now rather than regretting latter.
The double XX in column 1 represents records that I have played one (X) or two (XX) sides of, and recorded the audio

Column 2 is my inventory, and is primarily useful because when the records have sleeves, I physically number them. It made a lot more sense when there were 500 records, than 11000.

And as for why it's in that order, because I just added those records. It's a spreadsheet, and is completely sortable.

Column 10 is how many records are in the set. By default, it's 1. Album sets can, obviously, have larger numbers, anywhere from 2 to, in the largest sets I have, 24.

The column I regret not having, which I think I mentioned already, is the other sides of the single records!

Thank you... this info helps me out a lot!

Mr Grumpy · Post by **Mr Grumpy** » Sat Dec 10, 2016 6:26 pm

bfinan11 wrote:
Mr Grumpy wrote:Excel will format that as plain text
while the numbers will be formatted as numeric - you can tell because it right justifies
the numbers.
This is true. However, is there any situation where one would sort by record number as a primary sort? Victor 35501, Columbia 35502, G&T 7-35503, etc is not at all useful in my experience. Likewise, most of the time one wouldn't want to discard, or ignore, prefixes. You would end up with, for example, Columbia A- and E- series mixed up in one, or 5000-series one-sided Victors lumped with 21-5000 series 50s country. As long as every record with a prefix has it in the spreadsheet, it should be helpful.

You wouldn't ignore the prefixes you'd still add them, just make sure the cells are all formatted as text only so they can be sorted.

You could sort by record number as a secondary, so your first sort could be by manufacturer (Victor, Columbia) then by record number.

bfinan11 · Post by **bfinan11** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 1:06 am

I agree, but let's say you have diverse taste in eras and genres of 78s, and you have these among your Columbias:

in chronological-ish order: 1133, 71008, A874, A1133, E3803, E4075, A2820, A4075, 51-D, 935-D, 82505-F, 1133-D, 71001-M, 35379, 38065, 20825, 40822

If you were to sort all of these as text, you would get:
1133, 1133-D, 20825, 35379, 38065, 40822, 51-D, 71001-M, 71008, 82505-F, 935-D, A1133, A2820, A4075, A874, E3803, E4075.

If you were to disregard prefixes and suffixes, and sort them all as numbers, you would get:
51, 874, 935, 1133, 1133, 1133, 2820, 3803, 4075, 4075, 20825, 35379, 38065, 40822, 71001, 71008, 82505

If you do what I do and leave both of them in, and have mixed numbers and text, you would get:
1133, 20825, 35379, 38065, 40822, 71008, 1133-D, 51-D, 71001-M, 82505-F, 935-D, A1133, A2820, A4075, A874, E3803, E4075.

None of them are perfect. I'm not sure one is even better than the others. And even as a programmer, it's more work than I would like to do to create some special sort that is aware of, and follows, Columbia Graphophone Company's various numbering systems over the years to produce a coherent sort.

Luckily, most labels don't throw these kinds of curveballs at us, and have either series using only numbers, or series that at least all share one prefix or suffix (like Harmony's -H, or Diva's -G) that can be summarily ignored. (I won't even start on Melotone/Perfect numbering from the 30s, or a few small jazz labels that have wildly different numbers on either side of the same disc!)

edisonplayer · Post by **edisonplayer** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 10:45 am

I put my 78's in alphabetical and numerical order,such as Arto (A).The Columbias are 35977,the "A" series,then the "-D" numbers.Pop goes first,then records in the 14000 and 15000-D's,ect.edisonplayer

CMcPherson · Post by **CMcPherson** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 11:35 am

I'm seeing Columbia used repeatedly as examples.
Does this mean that they are typically collected more than other labels?
Do they have a bigger or generally more desirable catalog?

welshfield · Post by **welshfield** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 12:02 pm

I also use Excel. I listed both sides of two-sided discs. I have fields for "TYPE" of recording (acoustic, acoustic one sided, electrical, 2-min cylinder, 4-min cylinder, etc.) and a field for "type of music", in general (dance, comic, jazz, classical, quartet, etc.) and perhaps most important, LOCATION (oak cylinder cabinet, Pooley cabinet, and, for discs, "box" because I purchased a pile of nice white front-opening boxes from Uline (11 x 11 x 4)and printed labels for each box related to type of music (Jazz #1, Jazz #2, and in some cases more specific such as Louis Armstrong, Paul Whiteman, Bert Williams etc.) Initially I also had a field for date of recording, but having recently purchased a ton of 78s, have not filled in all the dates yet and possibly will not in any projected future. Oh, and also a field for condition of record, but as well have not kept this up.

I can sort on any field (performer, song title, label, matrix number, location) and print out a list of recordings for each storage location or box. Also a list for each performer. In some cases in the past I wanted to listen to all versions of a particular song title and am able to sort by this as well (say, Alexanders Ragtime Band).

I am very pleased with this spreadsheet. Of course I have saved numerous backups of this file just in case. It is very flexible and makes it easy to locate any record at any time to play for myself or for guests.

John

How do you keep track of your collection?

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