How Do You Track Your Comics Collection?

Cafe Society
1

In my ongoing war against the household chaos, I have reached my comic book collection. Most of them are bagged, boarded and boxed, so they are in at least OK shape. But, it has become clear to me that I don’t reread them often enough to keep them, and the ones that I would like to reread I don’t have a complete run of. So…

I need to find a way to catalog what I have, with an eye to selling the bulk of it, and generating a “missing issues” list for the rest of it. I’m thinking that I should probably get a computer database of some kind, maybe one that gives ballpark prices per grade of each issue. I bought a copy of the Comic Buyers’ Guide, and ComicBase 8 seems to be what’s out there (at least in the ads), but at $129 for the basic version it’s kind of pricy.

I found a 3-ring binder that had some inventory pages in it. It looks like I got about half my collection entered before I ran out of pages. They are copyright 1990 (has it been that long since I tried doing this?) by The Bag Man. I seem to remember buying them from an ad in the CBG, but there isn’t one this week, and an internet search didn’t turn up anything. I don’t feel right photocopying copyrighted pages, but I could run up something similar on the computer. It’s a low tech solution, and it doesn’t have some of the bells an whistles a computer program might have.

What do you think? Does anyone use ComicBase or a competitor? Are they worth the money? How do you keep track of these things? Any input welcome!

2

I don’t use commercial software. I’ve been tracking my comics (nearly 5000) using an MS Works database. Of course, it can’t generate missing issue reports, but I can use the filters and select a particular title to see what I’m missing.

3

I just keep an alphabetical listing using Excel, and turned it into a web page using the simplest HTML:

http://www.geocities.com/bigbadvoodoolou/comicmasterlist.html

And if anyone can find Judgment Day: Omega by Awesome Comics (from around 1997), I’m willing to pay for it!

4

Like Lou, I use Excel.

–Cliffy

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Thanks for the replies. It honestly never occurred to me to use Excel rather than specialty program. Can you tell why it has taken me 13 years to get this done?

[Off to start cataloging…]

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[Off to start cataloging…] and rereading every other issue you pull out to enter into your database?

Seriously, I decided that cataloging all my comics would be dozens of hours’ worth of work. Heck, I could be shopping for comics with that time. Or even reading them.

So I just scribbled on the ends of the boxes: “80’s DD, Spidey, etc…” “Bats, Supes, etc…” and now I’m off to hit the discount bins!

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I wish any of the stores around here had discount bins!

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I don’t get it . . . They go in longboxes from A-Z and I’ve read every one of them enough times to know which ones I have. What’s all this about cataloging?

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The Punkyova said “I need to find a way to catalog what I have, with an eye to selling the bulk of it,” which was my motivation for listing my collection as well. And I never had the room for longboxes until recently, so I kept my collection stacked in clear plastic Rubbermaid boxes since the mid-'80s.

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“I never had the room for longboxes”

I use short boxes. The only down side is that my wife can now say,“When are you going to do something with those 16 boxes of comics!”

11

Um, have you been peeking?

Lou is right, this is about preparing to sell. And stores around here don’t seem to have bargain bins. I like to give out comics instead of candy at Halloween, but for the last several years I haven’t been able to afford to do that. I called around a couple of days ago, and no one could give me a deal. I’m going to try the convention this weekend, but if that doesn’t work, I’m back to candy.

(I don’t give out the comics that I want to sell, because most of them are not suitable for all ages. Just in case someone wanted to ask the obvious question.)

12

16?? Try 50 long boxes… Yes, my husband is a saint. The books got a whole room to themselves.
I too use the Excel database. I’ve started to anyway…50 boxes take a long time plus you know, there’s more every week. I should probably stop reading the boards & start typing…

13

I haven’t done anything with it yet, but I downloaded a trial version of Comic Collector from Collectorz.com. The trial version is free but is limited to 100 comics. Looks like it will meet my needs but inertia has kept me from dragging out a box and trying it out yet.

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Shameless plug:

If ANYONE has any comics or TPBs from my want list that they want to unload (for money or interesting trades), I’d be much obliged!

http://www.geocities.com/bigbadvoodoolou/wantlist.html

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Shameless plug:

If ANYONE has any comics or TPBs from my want list that they want to unload (for money or interesting trades), I’d be much obliged!

http://www.geocities.com/bigbadvoodoolou/wantlist.html

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Sorry about the double post. Mods, I didn’t mean to make your jobs any harder.

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Thanks, IP. I looked at that briefly, and it seems to be a PC program. (I have a Mac.) But it’s about what I’m looking for.

I started on the Excel stuff last night, and it turned into a real pain. I’m leaning toward pushing Mr. Punky to get me ComicBase for my birthday. (Which was in August, so he owes me something for being late, I figure.) I’m lazy, and I like just entering stuff, not having to think about what to enter.

Plus, this way I can put it off longer!