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Why use software to catalog your antiques?

We collectors spend much of our time and resources collecting valuable antiques and other collectibles, but we don’t take the time to properly catalog them. Yes, it takes time to carefully document what we’ve collected, but the benefits will outweigh the costs for many of us.

Like many people my age, I grew up with antiques. As a poor boy on a small farm, I was surrounded by antiques, but I didn’t recognize them as such. They were our tools, our furniture, our farm implements, our means of transportation, and even some of our toys. He was surrounded by antiques, but they were just an everyday part of life.

As an adult, I wish I had some of these everyday items from my youth. Today they are worth much more than I could have imagined then. These days I spend much of my time searching various online forums and auctions for items from my youth, as well as other antiques. As a result, I have created small collections of various categories of special antiques.

For many years I relied on my memory and scattered handwritten notes and receipts to track my inventory. As time went on, I began to forget what I had, and sometimes I would catch myself thinking about buying an item I already had. Sometimes I would consider an item at a local show and wonder if the one I already had at home was in better or worse condition than the one I was looking at. Without a description or, better yet, a set of images, it was very difficult for me to be sure. This lack of information at my fingertips resulted in some purchases I probably should have made and passing on items I should have purchased to enhance my collection.

Other times I would join a discussion with a fellow collector of similar interests and try to describe an item I had only to realize I couldn’t remember some key aspect that would be interesting and worth sharing. Similarly, when visiting friends or family and the subject of my collecting interests came up, I couldn’t help them fully appreciate the items in my collection and the value of collecting them.

I’m sure many of my fellow collectors share similar experiences and sentiments. These days, with all the technology available to us, we no longer have to be limited by the lack of key information at our fingertips. There are many computer programs available to help us catalog our collections so that we no longer have to rely solely on our memories and scattered notes and receipts. They allow us to electronically track key information about items in our collections, as well as detailed images and even scans of our receipts and other written materials associated with each item.

Although without this software we could maintain detailed handwritten manuscripts describing each and every aspect of our collections that mattered to us, it is much more difficult to change handwritten records than it is to change electronic records. We may want to update our records and descriptions as we learn more about our items. For me, this meant throwing out my previous writing and rewriting my notes from scratch to incorporate major changes to what I had written before. With software, these changes become trivial.

Also, with software, we can retrieve information electronically much more easily than we could from handwritten records. In many software packages, this information can be manipulated, accumulated, arranged, and rearranged however we like. Not only can you organize your data however you like, but you can also collect and accumulate valuable statistics such as total cost, total value, appraised value, current value, and more.

With some of the more flexible packages, we can even modify the data we collect to suit our individual needs and preferences rather than what someone else thinks we should be tracking. Even better packages let you manage multiple collections in a single package or run multiple copies of the software, one for each collection.

Some cataloging programs can be run directly from USB flash drives or other removable media without needing to be installed on the computer on which they are running. This provides the advantage of being able to take your collection anywhere to show others on your computer without lugging a computer with you. When your collection resides on a USB flash drive or other removable media, you can also protect it without leaving it vulnerable on your computer.

Today’s mobile apps open up a whole new field when it comes to having information available at your fingertips to check your collection when considering the purchase of a new item or to share information with others. However, with their limited keyboards, it can be very difficult to manually enter information into mobile apps. On the other hand, mobile devices make it very easy to take pictures of items and include them in mobile app databases. That’s why the best of both worlds is when the data can be entered using a desktop or laptop computer and then downloaded to a mobile app where images can be easily added and then the results uploaded back to the desktop app. .

The software I use runs on a USB flash drive and allows me to manage one or more collections. With this software, I can easily enter information about my antiques and other collectibles onto a USB flash drive running on my desktop computer. I can then take the USB flash drive with me to share with others on their computers and lock it for safe storage when I’m done.

I can also download my collection as a companion mobile app on my Android phone to take it with me anywhere. This makes it easy to view images anytime, anywhere when visiting with others or considering purchasing a new item to add to my collection. The Android app also makes it very easy to take pictures of items in my collection. I can then upload those images back to the desktop app. This two-way communication allows me to take advantage of the best features in both the desktop app and the mobile app when managing and sharing items in my collections.

Although it takes time to input data into a software application, the benefits that data collection software provides are well worth the effort in my opinion.

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