Looks nice, Jay!
I've been through several labeling and storage iterations in my short time in the hobby.
Somewhat early on I made a website because I wanted full aesthetic and organizational control over the display (and now I'm two and a half years behind in updating it
). The website needed a name. My first coin
forum user name was ThisIsFun, because this is fun
. Soon after, as a matter of convenience people started calling me TIF (no, my name isn't Tiffany). TIFcollection seemed a natural name for the website.
For efficiency of space I keep my coins in
flips which are in coin boxes. At first I scrawled what I could on handmade plain white inserts. Not very attractive. Also, it is very difficult to insert and remove thin or thinnish paper from Saflips. I've since bought slightly sturdier PVC-free
flips but it is
still difficult to get those little bits of
auction epheral, such as prior inserts and other
provenance memorabilia, into and out of the
flips.
The paper needed to be stiffer. I thought business cards might
work. They do-- but of course they have to be trimmed a
bit and folded in half. I wasn't able to find a printer who would cut and score them to size for a reasonable
price so I do that
part by hand. As for a
collection name and logo, it made sense to just use my website name and graphics.
This has worked out quite well other than the tediousness of cutting and folding the business cards. I can tuck prior inserts and
auction ephemera inside the folded card where it is nicely protected and easier to remove.
At first I hand-wrote the attributions but that is a hassle and my handwriting is
poor, plus I can
type so much faster. Eventually I started printing the attributions onto 1.5 x 1.5" Avery labels and those are placed on the back of the folded business card. Some color coding of the
attribution is also helpful-- notable
pedigree info is in
red, plate coin info in blue, and unlisted ("not in
XXX, not in YYY") in green. Typed labels allows me to cram a
ton of info into that small space while
still keeping it legible.
I have a considerable number of coins from
Roman Egypt and those are very amenable to filing by
Emmett number, which I write on a tiny sticker affixed to the top right front of the
flip, making the addition of
new coins and finding old coins very quick.
The
Whitman boxes are fantastic. They have two permanent dividers inside so you don't have to stuff crumpled up paper behind the last
flip if the box isn't full. Plus, they won't wear out like paper boxes... and i'm in and out of my coin boxes frequently.