Whats a good coin inventory software for insurance purposes

[missouriz28-migration]

 

Hi everyone.

I have been looking for a coin inventory software. I would like to be able to put the price i paid, what the current value is, date purchased, grades, etc. This way I would be able to give a list to the insurance company.

This is my first post. I am putting together a nice set of morgans and have several that I have to have graded. I still have to download pics of my registered coins.

Thanks,

Jerry

[TomB]

I keep my coin inventory on an Excel spreadsheet that I've custom made for myself, and I believe that many of us do something similar. It is incredibly convenient as you can include whatever information, and in whatever manner suits you, simply by changing the format on your own.

[airplanenut]

I use NumisExpert software... works great for me. Tom is just trying to be too easy... he's clearly not lazy enough.

 

Jeremy

[Oldtrader3]

I use Coin Elite which is based on an obsolete earlier version MS Access Database. For this reason (and because it is somewhat quirky), I would not particularly recommend it.

[Beijim]

I do as does TomB - Microsoft Excel. I use different worksheets in the same file for each collection genre, one row per coin. The columns include such data as date, mint mark, description, source (eBay, Mint, dealer, etc.), date acquired, price paid, and comments. The nice thing about this is it's very easy to move a given coin onto a "for sale" page just by copying and pasting the coin's row. Then you can track the coin's ultimate sale disposition using the same entry.

 

Beijim

[Chippewa]

I use my own spreadsheet and then also use Heritage's free "My Collection" on-line software. I bought the CoinElite software and abandoned it because it took forever to populate and was very primitive.

[jom]

I took MS Access and wrote a database around it. I had used a Mac program (Filemaker?) for years and transferred it over some time ago. I finally got it working well enough to suit my needs.

 

jom

[James_OldeTowne]

Hello Jerry - where in MO are you? I'm in the St. Louis area.

 

I used an MicroSoft Excel spreadsheet, and in it I track just about every aspect of each coin I own, including purchase price, grade, who I bought it from, what date, when it sold and to whom, catalog number, etc. In fact, my website is built directly from uploads of my spreadsheet. I've never used any other inventory software.

 

WELCOME to the boards!

 

James

[cpm9ball]

Hello Jerry - where in MO are you? I'm in the St. Louis area.

 

I used an MicroSoft Excel spreadsheet, and in it I track just about every aspect of each coin I own, including purchase price, grade, who I bought it from, what date, when it sold and to whom, catalog number, etc. In fact, my website is built directly from uploads of my spreadsheet. I've never used any other inventory software.

 

WELCOME to the boards!

 

James

 

As Will Smith said in "Independence Day"...... "I got to get me one of these!" .....and "Excel for Dummies".

 

Chris

 

WELCOME TO THE BOARDS, JERRY!

[Chippewa]

Just a follow-up. Since you mentioned insurance, obviously if you lose your coins, receipts and computer in the same fire it will not matter how sophisticated your software was. One of the nice things about Heritage's My Collection is that it is stored on their server.

 

Of course, every few months you will get a call from Heritage asking if you want to sell anything, but if you are active in their auctions you will receive those anyhow. The information is not available to anyone other than Heritage.

[numismaniac-migration]

I use Excel. As other posts mentioned, It's completely customizable, and you can edit anytime you need too. ******** UNDER NO UNCERTAIN TERMS WOULD I GIVE A LIST OF MY COINS TO AN INSURER*******

An alternative is to have your spreadsheet documented in different mediums(hard & soft copy), have these copies witnessed and notarized.

****And now, for a story. My father's friend Robbie collected guns for years. All kinds; modern, antique, common, and rare. He filed documents with his insurance company outlining his collection...................and the entire thing ($400,000+) was stolenb because someone working for the company sold HIS information to thieves*****

Personally, I note the serial #'s off the slabs. I'm of the opinion that most thieves are lazy and are not going to have the forethought to crack-out (it would interfere with their drinking/drugging time).

Besides an insurer is going to want to know every intimate detail about the security precautions you give your collection before they write you a policy.

My final point concerning this : IF YOU ARE SPENDING MONEY TO INSURE YOUR COINS, YOU'RE TAKING MONEY AWAY FROM SPENDING ON COINS! ! ) And you don't want that , do You ?

[TomB]

I'm not certain if numismaniac is serious or kidding with the statement about insuring coins. For what it's worth, my opinion is that insurance makes me feel much less angst about my collection and that the cost of insurance, which is minimal, is worth it.

 

I keep a scan of every slabbed coin I have along with my Excel spreadsheet on a CD and also on a Zip disk. The scan is of the entire slab, both obverse and reverse. I also keep a hard copy of the spreadsheet. These are placed in a safe deposit box in one bank and then a duplicate copy of this information is kept in another safe deposit box in another bank, which is not affiliated with the first bank. All my receipts are kept in a third safe deposit box. All of this information is updated monthly to keep it current. There is also an electronic copy of all of it at home. My coins in slabs are then in individual Intercept Shield holders and then put in the ten-pack Intercept Shield packs that are then snuggly fitted into one gallon plastic freezer bags. The freezer bags are used as they are heavy gague plastic, cannot have PVC in them since they are food grade and protect the coins from moisture due to pumped in humidity or fire suppression systems. Coins kept in Capital Plastics holders have a double layer of Parafilm wrapped around all exposed edges to ensure a moisture tight and air tight seal. Lastly, everything is insured. I do not need to provide a list of coins for my insurer, I just have to tell them the insured total and if they are kept at home or in a safe deposit box. Since they are in safe deposit boxes, I only pay one half the premium that someone who keeps his collection at home would pay.

[rexcat]

Hi numismaniac,

 

First fo all, welcome to the forum.

 

I, use excel to keep the inventory of my coins, along with all the notes I want to keep about a given coin, my spread sheet has columns for the purchase price, greysheet bid at time of purchase, and greysheet bid at present. Each column totals at the bottom of the page and each page total is carried over to a master page that can sum up the whole collection. As I, mentioned in another thread, I’ll send any one who wants it a copy set up for US type coins.

 

As to your concerns about insuring your collection; I have found the policy that I am able to get by being an ANA member quite affordable, $35 per $10,000 per year. They only want line item listing of coins over 10 grand each. My coins are covered from theft, fire, and weather as long as they are in my house and stored in a safe.

 

To be afraid of the insurance companies’ employees… well you could go though life afraid of a lot of things about the safety of your coins. I, always think about a person’s credit card numbers and what my daughter would say about them when she worked as a waitress, “don’t have to look any farther than the kitchen of your favorite restaurant to a threat of the numbers being stolen, who do you all think can have access to your credit card when you let the waitress take it to pay the bill?”

 

My point being that things can happen and that is why I keep my collection insured. Sure it eats up a few bucks every year, but so does my memberships in my local club and the ANA, subscription to Coin World, grey sheets, coin books, and third party grading fees. I see those expenses as just plain part of the hobby.

[rexcat]

Hi missouriz28,

 

I didn't notice at first this is your first thread, opps, but that's what happens when you're just a cat.

 

So let me just say welcome to the boards!

[cpm9ball]

"Under no uncertain terms would I give a list of my coins to an insurer."

 

What happened to your father's friend is unfortunate, but don't get so pessimistic that you cut off your nose to spite your face. In this case, the one bad apple doesn't justify throwing away the entire barrel.

 

I understand that the insurance program offered through the ANA is pretty good. Does anyone have experience with them?

 

"If you are spending money to insure your coins, you're taking money away from spending on coins."

 

Maniac, I have to disagree with you on this point. Do you think that an annual premium could possibly replace a collection that someone has taken years, possibly decades, putting together? Even if you added the sum of ten years of premiums, it couldn't even come close to what some collections are worth.

 

"...an insurer is going to want to know every intimate detail about security precautions..."

 

I would be more concerned about making personal information available to eBay or PayPal. A smart hacker is much more dangerous than a drug-induced burglar.

 

Chris

[rexcat]

I understand that the insurance program offered through the ANA is pretty good. Does anyone have experience with them?

 

Look back two posts

[James_OldeTowne]

 

I took a screen shot of my actual Excel spreadsheet so you can get an idea of the columns that are useful for me. HERE it is full-sized (WARNING: HUGE image alert!).

 

The columns on my spreadsheet are:

 

1. Inventory status (ie. S=sold, W=on website, A=out on approval, etc)

2. Catalog number

3. greysheet bid

4. sale-price

5. coin's date

6. type

7. grade

8. certification

9. attribution

10. full description

11. date sold

12. sold to

13. estimated profit

14. purchased price

15. purchsed date

16. purchased from

 

If you look at the enlarged image, than look at my website, you will find that, as I stated previously, all the information in the spreadsheet is parsed by a program I wrote, and used to create HTML that I can upload directly to my webspace, thus refreshing the entire website inventory literally in a couple of minutes. Even the extended item descriptions are included in the spreadsheet. (Note that blurred information is proprietary corporate info.)

 

Of course, this is geared more towards a "dealer" perspective, but I have used this exact same spreadsheet for insurance verification before. A couple of extremely convenient ideas I incorporated include the grey-sheet column, on which I base my company's overall value, and I have totals at the top of appropriate columns. Also, notice my "recent acquisitions" section, which is where I enter each coin immediately upon being purchased. In this case, I haven't gotten around yet to filling in the sale-prices and grey-sheet values or descriptions yet.

 

One thing to note is that coins I have taken on consignment are highlighted in color, with a different color for each different consignor. You'll see that I've sold a couple of coins for one consignor (in blue) and have others in stock for a second consignor (in beige). In that case, the "purchase price" is actually a formula of "90% X sale price", so when I do sell the coin, I just plug in what it sold for , and the commission is automatically calculated.

 

Feel free to borrow and modify my format to fit your needs! It's what works for me, and I have been using the 100% exact same format for nearly seven years now.

[cpm9ball]

Very impressive, James. Now, if only there were a way to have changes in values updated automatically.

 

Chris

[missouriz28-migration]

Thanks for all of the advice, I didn't expect to get so many replys.

 

I can understand NUMISMANIAC'S response. My Dad had something similar

happen:

He collect's guns and had them insured with his agent for almost 20yrs. The agent wanted to buy some that were not for sale. In 1985, my cousin (needing money for drugs, of course) took 8 of them and sold them at a auction (Back then You didn't have to register a gun) He only had 2 reciepts for the two he bought new. The rest was mostly bought from individual's. The police impounded those 2. The auctioneer explain what happened and advised everyone that dad would buy the guns back and add $100 to the price that was paid for them. only 3 people did. 2 of them would not take the extra money. One gave the gun to my dad and would not even take a dime. The insurance paid a little of 1/3 of the value for the rest. To make this short (ha), my cousin did 9 years in the pen (he went in at the age of 18) and our family reunions are not the same. Two years later, The "insurance agent" called my dad and told him they recovered the other guns.

GET THIS: He can buy them back at full value - if he wants. He told them he would buy them back for the amount they paid him plus the difference in the value of what they were worth then to the day he bought them back. The agent said he could not do that. Somehow dad found out that the agent bought them for the exact amount the "company" paid dad. (3 weeks before he called my dad).

I guess the agent still owns them. They lost 15 accounts that day.

So as far as the coins go, I will only use a set dollar amount and most of the coins are in safety deposit boxes.

ok, I wrote a book. I appreciate the advise of all. Jerry

[missouriz28-migration]

 

Hi James,

Its nice to meet you. Thanks for the spreedsheet.

I will pull it up and use it just as soon as i have a little more

time then I do tonight. I am from Columbia.

I'll try to talk more, soon

Jerry

[cpm9ball]

Thanks for all of the advice, I didn't expect to get so many replys.

 

I can understand NUMISMANIAC'S response. My Dad had something similar

happen:

He collect's guns and had them insured with his agent for almost 20yrs. The agent wanted to buy some that were not for sale. In 1985, my cousin (needing money for drugs, of course) took 8 of them and sold them at a auction (Back then You didn't have to register a gun) He only had 2 reciepts for the two he bought new. The rest was mostly bought from individual's. The police impounded those 2. The auctioneer explain what happened and advised everyone that dad would buy the guns back and add $100 to the price that was paid for them. only 3 people did. 2 of them would not take the extra money. One gave the gun to my dad and would not even take a dime. The insurance paid a little of 1/3 of the value for the rest. To make this short (ha), my cousin did 9 years in the pen (he went in at the age of 18) and our family reunions are not the same. Two years later, The "insurance agent" called my dad and told him they recovered the other guns.

GET THIS: He can buy them back at full value - if he wants. He told them he would buy them back for the amount they paid him plus the difference in the value of what they were worth then to the day he bought them back. The agent said he could not do that. Somehow dad found out that the agent bought them for the exact amount the "company" paid dad. (3 weeks before he called my dad).

I guess the agent still owns them. They lost 15 accounts that day.

So as far as the coins go, I will only use a set dollar amount and most of the coins are in safety deposit boxes.

ok, I wrote a book. I appreciate the advise of all. Jerry

 

Jerry, it's too bad that had to happen to your Dad, and it's too bad that the statute of limitations has expired. It sounds like your father would have had a legitimate complaint that probably would have been upheld by the Insurance Commission and a court of law. Right away, the agents "offer" should have been a red flag to your Dad. Legitimate insurance companies don't operate that way, and state insurance regulators won't put up with any company or agent that violates a public trust in this manner.

 

As a rule, insurance companies are more than happy to recover what they paid for the loss. They are even willing to settle for less if the insured property has been damaged and rendered less valuable. In all likelihood, the agent probably lied and told the company that your father didn't want to buy back the guns. He was probably just trying to make a fast buck at your father's expense.

 

In any case, every state has an Insurance Commission that regulates insurers and agents. If the Insurance Commission finds that an insurer has violated their public responsibility, they can be subject to heavy fines. In extreme cases, they can even lose their license to conduct business in your state. An agent, on the other hand, can risk suspension or revocation of their license to sell insurance. In either instance, the door is left wide open for further civil penalties.

 

I think your father would have won by a landslide.

 

It doesn't matter whether the insured property is guns, coins, home, car or cabbage patch dolls. If you suspect that the company or agent is not acting in good faith, you have every right to file a compaint with your State Insurance Commission. They will conduct their own investigation and their decision is binding to all parties concerned. The results of their investigation can also be used by the injured party (your father) as evidence for civil damages.

 

Chris

[James_OldeTowne]

Jerry,

 

I lived in Columbia for seven years, including the years when Doug Smith and Anthony Peeler had the Tigers ranked #1! Of course, that's also during the unglory years of Woody Widenhoffer and Bob Stull....

 

Great meeting you here on the boards! By the way, I know the coin dealers in Columbia - pretty good guys.

 

James