Best way to inventory your collection?

This question comes up often, no real great solutions. Just do what works for you

There was a thread a few days ago about a phone app from woodland scenics that looks promising but has a few holes that need to be fixed first

We started decade ago with Access and finally converted it to Excel and that's where it lives now.  Simple, sortable, printable, searchable ... does it all.

I put a little silver dot with a permanent marker on the bottom of each piece that has been cataloged. That way a piece does not get counted twice.

I use Power Pt. Word & HD Video

   I like "Power Pt." because I can ad a photo along with "Word" I also did an insurance video, because that is what they ask me to do, for my home owners. 

Do any of you take pics of your rolling stock and engines as well?

Note book with pen or pencil easy to use, easy to change. It's simple and it works.

no pictures needed.

If you have a smartphone or tablet look at the app Model Inventory. Its by woodland scenics and made specifically for model trains. It's free and works well, I made a thread about it the other day you should check out. You organize everything by Steam, Diesel, and types of Rolling Stock. It's awesome. Also can take pictures to go along with inventory. 

Thanks guys for your responses. I'm also planning to "thin the herd", so anything that helps me there is welcome.

Johnny- does the Model inventory app link to microsoft Excel? Thanks for the suggestion.

Geno

Open Office spreadsheet.

Whenever I acquire something new, I add it to the spreadsheet, print out a copy and send it to our lawyer, to be added to our will.

Another old school method that works great because they are easily incorporated into running the layout, and transferred with cars if they "travel", file cards for each piece. Doubles as servicing/storage records, and stackable work orders for both running, and building trains in your yard too. I use them, but not to that extent. Gramps & pals used them to log loads, destinations, miles, & hours prototypically too. An 8 year old could use the system.

Not exactly, it allows you to back up your data, which sends all your data to your email and then i'm sure you can transfer that to Excel 

You can insert pictures into Excel spreadsheets too, by the way.

Every model that I own has detailed photos that go into my computer based model railroad catalog.

A typical catalog page is attached. Every catalog page is designed as a "web page".  I can link all the catalog pages to an overall index. Once I copy the entire catalog to a CD or DVD it then functions as a web browser. (Using either Explorer or Google Chrome)

Note: This HTML web catalog could also be placed "on the cloud" to allow access from a smart phone or tablet.

The catalog page idea is cool but I suppose it depends on what you want to use it for.  If for insurance purposes then it's a great way to go.  For myself, I would have loved to have had a sort-able spreadsheet at the Lionel event.  Not that I have so much stuff i forget what I already have or anything!  HAHA!  Also would be great to take to shows so once my benchwork is built, excel is the way to go for me.

Just about everything I have is on display, so no need here to catalogue. If I did have more then I could display, I might think about doing an inventory, but it would probably be on paper.

Don

MS Excel works for me.  I set up picklists for manufacturer, rolling stock type (tank, reefer, caboose, etc.) Let's me filter on various columns to see what I have.

Don

That's on of the best comments here.

I just made a spreadsheet.  Wish now I'd done something I could access online.

MS Access for me. Includes representative photos of each item (catalog, ebay, or taken myself). Built it several years ago as part of a tutorial for my students. Going to re-work it and put some VB code behind it to simplify importing the photos.