App to manage your collecttions?

Hello guys, how do you catalog your collections?
In my case they are Walkmans or cassette players, I have already tested some applications but without success. I ended up using Evernote for its notebooks and notes system, it's great for managing and taking notes, attaching photos and pdf manuals, links.
However the presentation is compromised when you want to show something to someone, I am thinking of migrating to folders on the One drive where I will use Microsoft Word files for each device, anyway it will not be much different from Evernote.

Any suggestion tips?
I am thinking of doing a physical catalog where I would print the WORD files to put in a folder or album.

Thanks for any commentary!

 

I don't. In fact I don't know where half my Discmans are --- which is the perfect excuse for buying another if I see something cheap.

In the past I have mentioned my late Fathers Toy Train collection which due to lack of space and only a 50% ownership I have been selling off for the last thirteen years.
I don't think he knew what he had. He would buy an item or two, write about them for a collectors magazine then move on to another purchase.
Since I have photos of every single item I have sold I do think a nice retirement project would be to do one of those photobooks showing all his trains and toys. That wouldn't work for a growing collection though.

A good idea about the folders.

A few people have done their own websites of their collections. Peter Vis or DustyGizmos are two that spring to mind. Peter Vis is particularly good in showing you inside his items, which means several people here have linked to his site.
If you do computerise things don't forget about backups. I do have a complete backup of my computer on a hard drive stored about a mile from here, and another backup here in the house.

 

Thank you for your time and your comment.
In Evernote it is possible to transform the notes into a link/websites to share with whomever you wish, just click to view the content.
With a premium account I have also tested the service associated with Evernote (Postach.io). I remembered that when you quoted Peter Vis. Inside the application you can turn a notebook into "BLOG", when editing the notes in the application the Blog is updated automatically.
Maybe I'll give the app one more chance, the biggest problem that until now I couldn't get around is the fact that you edit a note and change the display mode but, I noticed that it is now possible to leave the visualization sorted by creation order or alphabetical order.
Literally now I can create a NOTEBOOK and name it "Photo album from the walkmas collection", or even create notebooks named by brands (TOSHIBA, AIWA, SONY ...).
I'll come here and then I'll post the result.

 

Thanks, it can be another alternative, maybe very simple but with great features.

 

One thing I forgot to mention, I keep the items from my collection in these boxes where I separate them by lots (cataloged and not cataloged), recently acquired
items that I have not yet evaluated.
Through Evernote I created a notebook called "Boxes" and inside it I create a note for each box (WK-A01, WK-A02 ...).
In each note I make a brief description and add photos of the content.
I set up the note so that its corresponding web link is available, I take this URL and convert it to QR code, then I print and put the label on the boxes.
This way I have two ways to consult the contents of the boxes without having to open them:

1. I consult the note directly in the application;
2. Scan the QR code to open the "website" version and see the content.

I will share some QR codes below, so you can have an idea:


This system I started to use in a house move, so when packing things up, soon afterwards in the new house I would know which box to open to easily locate everything. You can use this system to manage even a small business's inventory.

 

I made an Excel file for Valuable walkmans mostly DDs. So by going to this file I can have details about each walkman including the type of restoration, any gear problem, any replaced parts, status of pinch roller ...

For the rest of my collection I place a note inside the cassette compartment.

 

Another great contribution, thank you.
I'm looking for a small size hard plastic bag to put each walkman inside. I believe it is the best way to preserve the device, I will add a bag of silica as well.

 

or maybe NOT: I have a few dry-boxes in my Lab to keep Methanol, 200-Proof Ethanol and 100% Acetic Acid from absorbing water from air, and once delegated one of those boxes to keep my stash of rubber belts. In just two years a few belts got stiff and crumbled

 

I know this discussion is super old, but before I start a new one with the same topic I would like to share my experience and the software I use.

I collect walkmans, discmans and headphones, and after I started to reach a considerable amount of stuff I knew I needed an inventory software. For me the visual aspect is very important and I wanted something that would let me appreciate my collections with pictures and a nice enough interface. After some research I ended buying Home Inventory from Binary Formations for EUR 15.89 for my Mac. Unfortunately it has been discontinued and replaced with something very similar called Under my Roof that is subscription based, so if you are ok with subscription models give it a try. It looks very nice and can be used on an iphone/ipad and a Mac.

The interface is very simple and clean. It's designed for home inventory, as the name suggest, so there are a couple of things that you would not be using as they are but maybe they can be repurpose, like 'heirs' and 'locations'. You start by making an 'inventory' and then you enter an 'item'. You can add costume fields, but unfortunately you are limited on the amount, so you have to decide what is the most important information you need. The addition of 'tags' helps me overcome this limitation. Every 'inventory' has five subcategories: categories, collections, heirs, locations and tags. I use categories, collections and tags.

For illustration purposes I'll show my headphones collection inventory. So the inventory is called Headphones Collection and it is divided in 'categories' which I use to separate the type of headphones: in-ear, on-ear, over-ear, etc. and 'collections' which I use for the headphones brands.



I prefer to have my 'items' column as a clean list but you can also have thumbnails before the item's name.



You also can add PDFs or other type of documents in the files section, very handy for instructions and service manuals. Every 'inventory' can be open as a separate window so I always have my three 'inventories' open at the same time. You can make backups and export your collections as CSV files.

Until now I have been very happy with it. I know this an obsolete software used on an old Mac OS but it can be used as a reference for the new incarnation, Under My Roof. Shame they changed to a subscription model and don't give an option for buying it anymore. I can imagine there are other apps similar to this one, so suggestions are always welcome.