Question about catalogging software

[Sheesh]

You may have seen an earlier post of mine that we recently came into 3 million or so trading cards. My question is about catalogging software.

I know that there is software out there, is there any particular program that one can recommend? Does your recommended software have places where you can download the latest card values / book prices?

Would I be better off developing my own Microsoft Access database? If I am able to develop my own Access database, is there a place I can download that latest card values / book values for cross referencing with player cards?

What I am hoping to avoid is manually pricing these cards once they are in a database. Of course, I was also thinking that I can make it a policy to haggle with each and every person, too. If a person wants a card, they can make an offer and I can then look up the price.

Anyway, just some questions about software. Thanks in advance for your responses!

[kgpittm]

I use The Card Collector http://www.thecardcollector.com/

They have downloadable card values, although I'm not sure how up to date they keep them when things change (it seems they are very on track with Beckett initially when a set is added, but they don't track as well).

I've been pretty pleased with The Card Collector - I've used it off and on for 10+ years now. There are some features that could be improved (many of them were things that were originally in the program, but not maintained when the hobby exploded in the late 90's - they couldn't keep up and sold off to a larger company). Overall, though, it is pretty easy to use and I'm satisfied. I update my prices about twice a year, though you can update every month.

[Sheesh]

After performing some research AND giving thought to my own database development, I think I am going with the Card Collector product. Here is an email exchange I had with the developer:

____________________________
Hello:

I recently came into 3 million trading cards, mostly sports. I am
researching ways to organize this collection. Ultimately, I wish to
sell them. You can create any type of collection using our product in addition to the preloaded card sets. We have over 21 thousand preloaded sets.
I would like to ask a few questions about your Card Collector
software.

* Do you have card value updates? Yes If so, what source are these
values based upon? Highest Published Price.How often are updates available? Monthly.
* Can I create importable/exportable Access and Oracle files? You can export you cards in either .txt or as an Excel file.
* Do you feel that your product can handle up to 3 million entries? Yes.

Just trying to make a decision as to what product may best suit my
needs. Thank you very much for your time. You are welcome.


[email protected]

__________________________________________

The card value update is important. However, I did note that "Highest Published Price" is rather ambiguous. So, as with most anything in this trading card world, I suppose, dickering as a way of selling / trading will become a way of life. My Becketts will also be a reference. Just having a value on them for insurance purposes will be helpful.

I am also interested in entering information by the card manufacturer, Year, Set and the set number, rather than concerning myself with player information (which is included as a table already part of the software). This will be particularly useful regarding the manufacturer sets that I have have (which are proving to be many with commons). Seems that The Card Collector software will allow me to do this.

Anyway, don't mean to endorse the above product. After a few days of net research, just seemed to suit my needs and thought that this thread may be helpful to others.

Anyway, thanks a bunch again for your help!

[tutall]

how much does a program like that going to run? is the cost worth the time it saves or is it relatively inexpensive?

[Sheesh]

$39.95 says their website, http://www.thecardcollector.com/ To me, with 3 million cards to go through, $40 is well worth it.

[tutall]

any idea how much the updates are? just wondering as i could not see anythign on their site... they surely cant be free can they?

[Sheesh]

I, after my initial email, thought of that question, too. I can't answer that. I also wonder if the updates are truely monthly.

For my purposes, the most current data set will work well for me, as most of the cards I have are pre-2000. All I want is a ball park value (pun intended) and a robust and easy database with data that is transferable.

Hope this helps ;)

[Star_Cards]

sheesh,
I would rethink your catalogging of these cards. If yo're going to sell on ebay, I would just create auctions by however you are going to best attack it and go from there. I don't have 3 millions cards but have close to 200,000 to 600,000 at different times and I just then seperated by players and other groups like inserts and RCs. That let's me see what I have when I either create ebay lots or fill customer orders.

If you catalog all of these cards, the list is probably going to be giant. if you send it to someone to have them look through it, it will probably be too long. Also, when you sell a card you'll just have to go back into the database and update.

just my thought.

[S.A.M.]

I agree with Star_Cards. You are definitely not going to want to catalog 3 million cards especially since you are just going to sell them. Take Star's advice. Not only will the list be too long for any one to look through it would take you more hours than you can imagine to enter that many cards in the software. It'll already take quite a while to sort through the 3 million and organize like Star said, let alone enter data for each card. Good luck, 3 million cards is a lot to process.

[kgpittm]

To answer a couple questions:
Updates are $19.95 per month, $59.95 for One Year Quarterly, $149.95 for One Year Monthly.

Each update you get brings everything up to date, regardless of how you do it. So if you order monthly updates for every month through December versus only once in December, you would have the same info come December - it's just that between now and then you wouldn't get any updates if you didn't get any others. I tend to just buy a single update whenever there is several sets I have that have been added in the updates and/or I've gone awhile since my last update and want to update prices. This averages 1-2 updates per year for me, but could be more if you had a larger collection (or less if you didn't have much current / price volatile stuff). Since I rely more on Card Collector for Inventory than Pricing, I don't update for pricing very often. I have a Beckett Online Subscription to watch pricing.

Yes, they do update every month: You can see how much they add every month at http://www.thecardcollector.com/archives/archives.html - they have updated every month since at least Feb '03, which is about when the current owners took over the product. There was a dry period near the end of the tenure of the previous owner, but that was due to them having difficulty keeping up (which is why they sold the company).

Here's a few notes that relate to what you can do with the program:
- For sets, you can quickly indicate that you have a complete set without having to enter every single card.
- There is a "Bulk Commons" feature that allows you to just put in the number of commons you have in a given set. This seems like it would be a good idea based on how you are seperating your cards. I would not attempt to add all of your cards individually if you do not plan on keeping them.
- If you have mostly pre-2000 cards, there isn't much need to update frequently. Just buy the progam (which will come with the current updated info) and get Beckett OPG to check current prices on higher-end stuff (Beckett also allows one free check per day per browser).
- In the event that they update the program (they are currently on version 7.0. I started with version 3.0 and expect another update to come in another year or two), they usually offer free upgrade with any price update purchase - so you don't really have to worry about having to pay more for any new features they come up with.
- The reports you can generate with this program are extensive. You can list cards you own by player, team, etc. even though they aren't catalogued that way. You can also generate want lists very easily (that's how I do mine - I doubt it matters if your goal is to sell).

Hope this answers some of your questions. The Card Collector isn't a perfect program (several things I would change if I had a say - thankfully they usually listen), but it's solid and I haven't found anything that compares with it for keeping track of inventory on a larger scale.