Did you know that you can use HTML Code to add graphics and photographs to your Custom Registry Set?

I really love the Custom Registry Sets. They provide a wonderful opportunity for creativity and telling your own numismatic story. Obviously my fellow Collector's Society members agree with me as there are currently over 7,000 Custom Registry Sets. There are some amazing Custom Sets in the Registry and I really enjoy exploring them in my spare time. The NGC judges will certainly have a difficult task selecting the 2012 Registry Award winners for the four Custom Set categories.

With the deadline for the 2012 Registry Awards fast approaching I thought that I would take this opportunity to share some ideas that you can use to spruce up your Custom Registry sets.

In developing my Custom Registry sets one of the things that I found most frustrating was that the format limited me to two images for each coin. I always felt that it would be extremely useful to be able to include additional non-numismatic images that would help tell my story and place it in context.

Some of the more creative Custom Sets have gotten around the two image limit by using one of the two image slots for a graphic or non-numismatic image that helps tell their story. One of the best examples of this is the Horses set from The BRG Collection http://coins.www.collectors-society.com/WCM/CoinCustomSetView.aspx?s=5705 which won the Most Creative Custom Set Award in 2011.

Another creative feature of the Horses set was that BRG inserted art work into his set description. For the longest time I had no idea how BRG accomplished this. I tried cutting and pasting and this did not work. After several months of unsuccessful experimentation I decided to contact BRG through The Collectors Society Messaging System and ask him to share his secret.

BRG was extremely gracious in talking me through what I needed to know to add art work and images to my set descriptions. The secret of course was to use HTML Code to link and imbed images within the set description. HTML coded can also be used to center and bold captions.

All of this took some time as I have absolutely no experience in using HTML code. BRG was extremely patient with me and broke everything down into simple insufficiently_thoughtful_person proof steps for me to follow. He was also gracious enough to create the art work that I use as the header in my United States Manila Mint set description. http://coins.www.collectors-society.com/WCM/CoinCustomSetView.aspx?s=1113

Ok here are the insufficiently_thoughtful_person proof steps to imbed an image in your custom set description:

1) Upload your photo or art work to a web site. This creates an HTML address for the image. If you do not own a web site you can create a free photobucket account and upload your images there.

2) Add HTML tags (the "<" and ">" symbols) around the location of the image and paste it into the set description where you want the picture to appear. Here is an example:

<center>

< img src="HTML ADDRESS of YOUR IMAGE HERE" width="640">

< /center>

You can also use code to center or bold text. I used the following simple HTML code instructions to insert a caption under a nighttime photograph of the Battle of Manila that I embedded in my set description. The photo was taken by my father in February 1945 during the Battle of Manila.

You can center a caption by enclosing it within some HTML tags. It should look like this:

<center>YOUR PHOTO CAPTION HERE</center>

If you want to make the caption bold you can use the following:

<center><b>YOUR PHOTO CAPTION HERE</b></center>

Please take a look at my United States Manila Mint Custom Registry Set. http://coins.www.collectors-society.com/WCM/CoinCustomSetView.aspx?s=1113

I think that you will agree that the embedded art work and images really enhance the story of the Manila Mint and helps to convay its historical and numismatic context. If you like these effects try sprucing up your Custom Registry Sets with embedded photos and art work.

The attached photo shows some of the art work embedded in my United States Manila Mint set description. This montage combines graphics, a circa 1920 photo of the Manila Mint from the National Archives, and a photo of the reverse of one of my 1920 Wilson So-Called Dollars (The official medal commemorating the opening of the Manila Mint).

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