How to make a list by catalog number.

I've definitely run into this problem before, because catalog numbers don't necessarily run in pure alphanumeric sequence.  What I've ended up doing in situations like this is to actually have an additional column that I sort off of.  It's not much more work.

In your example, I would do something like this:

        
234, 465, 279, 863, 396a, 469B, 396



.etc.

I actually have some rules I use about the digits to the right of the decimal, so that I can sequence sets, mnh vs mh vs used, etc., because I'm trying to do this in a database where consistence is helpful.

I also "pre-pend" large numbers to catalog numbers like this:

"B" prefixes get 15,000
"C" prefixes get 20,000, etc.

So, B451 would be 15451, and so on.

Because Japan has the unusual "Z" prefix, which appears right after regular issues and before semi-postals, that's what I assign the 10,000 prepend to.  So Z363 would be 10363.

Obviously, as long as you're reasonably systematic about it, you can do whatever makes the most sense for you personally.

Just my personal take on this problem ...

Thank you JanetC , 3920004554

Thank you also Philatarium, 3920004554

Now I have lots of ways to do it!

JerryB, Thank you.
Now I have yet another way to do it 3920004554

I finished one series already and ran into another problem at the end.
Maybe you all also know how to get around this new problem?

I'm using open office, which when you open a new file you get to choose text document, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, or database. I knew you could sort in spreadsheet mode so I went there. When done I wanted to change the result to a text document, but couldn't figure out how to do it. Copy/pasting the columns of numbers into a text file just gave me an image rather than text.
My 'gut' told me there might be a way by exporting as a PDF and then doing something sneaky.

There is almost always a "save as" function in the file menu of these kinds of software, it's been too many years since I have used open office to recall if it had this, but you can check.

If you find "save as" and select it, you probably will see a box with a way to give your file a new name, but also a drop down that lets you select whatever other types of file you can save as, in that list will almost certainly be text.

I don't use excel for my inventory but this will work for any type of computer sorting with ASCII characters.

My solution is to have four columns. Prefix, number, suffix and catalogue number. The catalogue number is the concatenation of prefix+number+suffix.

You sort the list by prefix,number and suffix. You print the catalogue number field.

It's more complicated to type this than implement it.

Mark

Hi Butterflies


I have made a inventory for my stamps In my documents.


First a file titled World Stamps in this file I add folders with the country name, eg Germany each stamp I have is scanned cropped and saved at 500pix the title is then added eg 1964 SG1345 year first Cat No next and prefix last this will follow alpha numeric order.

This can be made to suite your needs, I started this to store images of stamps to post on may web site (which has gone now) I will see if I can and an image to this thread.