What's columns are on your Excel spreadsheet?

[Avy1234]

I was a collector when I was young in the late 80's to mid 90's. I've gotten back into the game and have thousands of old cards to organize as well as many new incoming purchases from ebay, baseball card shop, etc. I've decided from searching the forum I am going to do it in an Excel format. To me it seems the simplest and most convenient out of the ideas people on the site have had.

My question is how do you have your spreadsheet organized. What headings do you use for each column (Year, Player, Manufacturer, etc) and also how do you specify inserts? A separate column? Separate tabs?

I'd really appreciate any tips people can give me on how their Excel spreadsheet is setup and how well they feel it works. Also let me know what shortcomings you feel there are or things that may bug you that could be improved upon. Thanks.

- Justin -

[donkaha]

I'm a set collector, so if you are not, you might want to ignore this post.

I start with a master folder.
In the folder I have spreadsheets broken down by year + manufacturer.
In the spreadsheets I have tabs with each individual set.

Example, I have a 2009 Topps spreadsheet with seperate tabs for Main, Heritage, Chrome, A&G, etc.

In each individual set tab I list the card + name and/or description with the corresponding numerical row on the spreadsheet. (i.e. Card #445 goes in row 445). Then, in column C I put the quanity of cards.

If I have a base low-end insert, I generally make a new column in E with a new category. And so on down the road for the next one.

For auto's/good GU's/high-end inserts I have a seperate spreadsheet. Normally, I don't collect these, so it's more for looking up something quick for a trade because my memory isn't sharp anymore. For these, I generally have my columns in the order of: Year, player, Type of card, manufacturer, set card came from, quantity. But really it's Excel, so it doesn't matter that much.

I store them all on a seperate external hard drive.

I know it's really anal and I don't know if I recommend it for others, but it makes things really easy on me keeping tabs of my inventory + set collections.

[DanielSweeney]

I have different tabs for the different collections I have (HOFers, Buffalo Bills past players, Buffalo Bills current players, etc.)

In each tab I have a column for [1]Name, [2]Team, [3]Card Co., [4]Year, [5]Brand, [6]Card Set Name, [7]Card #, [8]Serial #, [9]BV/SV, [10]AU/GU/RC, [11]Additional Info (for stuff I might need to know like "on card auto", or "multi-colored patch", etc.) I don't use all the columns for all the cards, but it pretty much covers anything I'd need to know about the card.

For fun, I have it set to total the BVs for each tab. I keep a running total on a separate tab.

[Avy1234]

Thanks so far for the information guys. Both were helpful. I had mostly similar ideas but it's those small things missing that make all the difference. Right now I'm working on a Spreadsheet for a single player, so it's pretty simple.

For Frank Thomas I made 4 tabs of separate sheets on one file labeled: Base, Inserts, Serial #'d, and Game Used. I then used these columns: Year, Player, Manufacturer, Set name, Card #, Serial #, Value, Quantity.

I'll definitely be using the "additional information" tab and some other stuff though. I have a long ways to go for Thomas and then it's on to the PSA Graded cards. Thanks again guys.

- Justin -