How to order flips in a rapidly growing collection?

[Robert T2]

Hi All, I use 2x2 flips stored in a three ring binder, soon two binders.

At the moment I'm just jamming the coins in there as they emerge from cleaning and with no thematic separation except romans up front and greeks at the back.

I wanted to start ordeing into smaller collections, e.g. the 3rd century radiate antoniniani emperor sequence, Tetrarchy Folles, Roma Commemoratives, Ladies of Rome etc. Question is how do you insert in new coins without having to shift everything forward. How do others deal with this, do you leave spaces for possible future acquisitions or something else?

Would love to hear what you do.

cheers,

Rob

[maridvnvm]

I have three albums dedicated to Probus alone. Within these I have separated these coins into Emissions in chronological order with the emissions sorted by RIC numberand then Officina. I try and leave spaces where I know I have gaps that I am likely to fill and simply add pages between mints when one mint becomes full, I have had to shift entire mints into another album before now. In my experience it is sometimes inevitable that a mass re-ordering occurs from time to time.
I the have three other albums with similar structure. My Emesa Septimius Severus album follows a similar structure with the coins in rough chronological order and then alphabettically by reverse etc. in a similar way to RIC, but there are so many that aren't listed in RIC using RIC number alone isn't as easy.

My biggest headache is getting the 600+ coins that I haven't moved across from trays into the albums yet!

No real answers for you but an isight into another maniacs approach to storage.

Regards,
Martin

[kerux]

Currently I just use the broad classifications of: Greek, Roman Republic, Roman Imperial, Roman Provincial and Byzantine...it is easy to just add extra pages as needed in your binders. More specific classifications or groups you want to "keep in order" do become problematic as your collection grows...re-ordering is usually inevitable!

Joe W.

[Heliodromus]

I also keep my coins in albums (in 1.5" flips so I can get more to the page). My collection is quite focused which I guess makes planning easier. I've got a 3.5" fat (7lb weight!) album for my Constantine issued coins (main focus), plus seperate albums for his tetrarchic predecessors and peers, and for much earlier/later coins (e.g. greek, kushan, severan, byzantine).

The way I have the main Constantine album organized is by date then grouped into particular issues or dates, and I do leave a little space between these various groupings for both planned or unplanned additions. The nice thing with a ring binder is that you can always insert pages to expand a particular section - you don't need to reorganize the whole album.

However, although I do try to plan ahead to leave space for new additions, I also quite *like* reorganizing the album, and find that each time I do a re-org  I've learnt something from it - there's something to be gained from seeing all the coins and consecutive issues physically together.

Ben

[areich]

A somewhat related question: do you use something, and if yes, what as a buffer between pages in your albums. I'm talking about the binders with the flips. Turning pages, especially with larger bronzes often makes me think that something like that is necessary to protect the coins in the long run. This is probably not an issue with Probus' antoniniani though.

Andreas

[Heliodromus]

In general I don't have anything between the pages, but I do have a high-relief greek silver coin (Rhodos trihemidrachm - Helios) that I've protected from getting squashed by taping a piece of bubblewrap to the back of the page opposite the obverse.

Ben

[maridvnvm]

All my pages have a card insert between the pages. All coins are in foldover flips with a card insert with all the coin details and a photo of the coin, which adds to any cushioning I guess.
Martin

[kerux]

A somewhat related question: do you use something, and if yes, what as a buffer between pages in your albums. I'm talking about the binders with the flips. Turning pages, especially with larger bronzes often makes me think that something like that is necessary to protect the coins in the long run. This is probably not an issue with Probus' antoniniani though.

Andreas

Andreas,

With my large Greek & Provincial bronzes I will often "stagger" them on alternating pages where no coins directly touch another coin on the pages before & behind...each coin touches only a blank slot on the pages near it. It looks like a checkerboard pattern and works quite well although you do lose half your storage area on each page.

Joe W.

[areich]

That is a good idea, thank you. I could maybe put the flips next to the coins this way.

[Robert T2]

Thanks so much for the ideas and suggestions on ordering... I guess I hadn't thought about the possibilities for learning from re-ordering from time to time (good insight Ben!), but I can see that would be the case.

Something occured to me from reading this, was what to do with coins that overlap collections... e.g. I collect Ladies of Rome as a theme, but this would overlap with my Tetrarchs etc. I read somewhere of someone printing moneta sheets at the back of binders and thought perhaps that might be a way of ordering collections in general. That is you could physically store the coins anyway, but have the themes in printed sheet form and simply print up more than one sheet for coins featuring in more than one collection...

keep the ideas coming 

thanks,

rob

[Robert T2]

an Update... well yesterday I spent a couple of hours re-ordering my flips and bought another binder to "expand". Actually it was a lot of fun and I learnt a little more about what I have and the ordering on the empires rulers etc. I ended up with more or less chronological periods, 12 Caesars, Adoptive/Severan, Crisis, Recovery, Tetrarchy, Constantinian Successors, Constantinian period commemoratives, and late empire, leaving gaps where I knew I had stuff coming or was likely to. The roman imperials I've now got in a larger binder and my greek divided into, Pantikapeon (divided into sub-types), Kingdom of Bosporus, and miscellaneous.

What I thought would be a chore actually turned out to be a nice way of reconnecting with my collection

[Heliodromus]

What I thought would be a chore actually turned out to be a nice way of reconnecting with my collection

That's good!

Sometimes you also have to flip through the album and gloat over your coins - gloating is an important part of collecting!   

Ben

[Mark Lundgren]

I have 6 fat binders (not all full): 1 greek & misc and approximately 1 for each century of imperial rome, then different sheets (holding paper 2x2's) w/in the albums for families, or similar time periods, etc.; no super-fast rules - I don't worry about open spaces.

MY QUESTION IS:  does anyone have something better than the 2x2 paper holders that will still show off the coins in the 2x2 album page pockets?  How are the plastic (or whatever the good ones are) flips?  How are Forvms?   I'm planning to scan/photograph all my coins and have a digital collection, but now I have to tear all the paper flips apart, and I don't want to do that again if I get a better camera or something later.  I like the binder pages themselves; they're really flexible,  so I'd like to keep them.

thx,

-Mark

[Joe Sermarini]

If you are buying flips, ours are the best.  That is why we sell them.