How do you stay organised? Do you keep an inventory?

There aren't that many countries in which I have large collections. I'm trying to inventory those.

For starters, I purchased a program called StampManage. It has incomplete but usually pretty good catalogs (using Scott numbers) of every stamp-issuing entity in the world, past and present, or at least every country I've ever tried to look up. (If you're not running Windows, I don't have much to offer. I'm pretty certain it wouldn't run under Wine in Linux, and somebody who has a clue about Apple could probably tell you if it could run in Parallels or something.)

StampManage is a bunch of databases, but unlike every other philatelic-inventory product I know of, it allows me to export the databases into a more open format that I can use. It is based on Microsoft Access; I export what I want into HTML and then from there pop it into LibreOffice Calc, which is much faster to use (at least for me it is) and lets me just plain delete the fields that are of no interest, which is a lot of them. Like you, I prefer postally used stamps, so whether or not a stamp is hinged is pretty much irrelevant.

I started doing this because I make all my own album pages. They're not even album pages, really; they are ID tags and descriptions that I put on Vario pages. I use LibreOffice for this, partly because it's free, and partly because in many ways I think it surpasses Microsoft Office and has overcome my old favorite, WordPerfect Office Suite, which has been pretty much stagnant for years anyway.

But moving beyond the tagmaking, I stuck a column at the beginning and have started entering codes in there: "G" for "I have this stamp and it's a nice copy, plenty good enough for me", "F" for "I have this, but my copy is a space-filler", and "P" for "I have this, but it's either got a postmark I might want to move to a separate collection or it's in a topic I also collect separately". In Calc, unlike in most database programs, I can speed things up; for instance, I have a pretty good run of Jugoslavia from the 1960s and 1970s, so I can just drag a "G" down that column and fill 100 rows at a time or something. If you have 8 crates of stamps around - not that I'm envious or anything, not me - you'll end up really liking every shortcut you can find!

When I'm done, I load the spreadsheet into a Dropbox folder, and I can read it on my phone when I'm at a stamp show, which will keep me going completely bonkers. Partially bonkers suits me just great.

I've never had a problem with StampManage. Some people have, and from what I've heard the technical support can be pretty erratic; though, again, that's not from personal experience. It costs about $80, but it's worth it to me because it does enough of the basic, and mind-numbing, grunt work. LibreOffice is free, like I mentioned, and is available for every operating system I've ever heard of. The OO Reader app on my phone was free, and I gave them a whopping $3.00 to get rid of the tiny little ads and just to say hi.

Hope this helps.

Butterfly, you made me laugh as at the moment I don't have plastic bags but recycled plastic trays - they are a bit larger than a postcard and I am sorting  stamps into  them. The advantage is that if I get interrupted the trays will stack into each other - so I can whip away the stamps and then pull them out again when I have time for some more sorting.  

mourningdoves, I am on a Mac so don't have the option of using that software - but I am not sure I have what it takes to run a full database - I can imagine me using a spreadsheet but think a database might get set up with good intentions but ... well I am sure I would get side tracked

ignacio, I have checked out colnect.com and notice I can export to CSV too - I will look further into it - thanks!

Greetings Ms. sharonb,
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Way back in the mid-1980's I was an avid fan and user of a "stamp inventory program". It was fairly easy to use and seldom had any problems. But when a problem arose and I contacted the "help desk" I got a runaround and got a definite aura of indifference. Thus, I took matters into my own hand and created my own simple spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel).
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I have exactly 128,801 stamps, of which 62,090 are duplicates. Every time I identify a stamp for my collection or trade a stamp I record it into a spreadsheet (I now have one spreadsheet for my US stamps and six for my world-wide stamps -- using the six volumes used by Scott (at the time). I have seven spreadsheets for my duplicates: one US and six world-wide.
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For world-wide stamps the column headings are: Country, Scott Number, Denomination, Color, Description, Issue or Series, Watermark, Perforation, Date of Issue, Catalog Value, Scott Issue Date, and Misc. Information. The US spreadsheets, of course, does not need the Country column. For the duplicate stamps there is an additional column to record the number of duplicates of each different stamp.
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My only regret is that I did not include a column for the Printing Process (Engraved, Typography, Photogravure, and Lithograph). But I can live without it.
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Respectfully,

Gordon Lee

angore, Stamp manage sounds great and I am sure many members of the forum will find the information in your post - but unfortunately for me it is only for Windows I am on a Mac. Since it appears there is no Mac equivalent. There are databases of course but none already populated with stamp information. Stamp manage is not an option but an Excel spreadsheet is. I am leaning towards doing that because of course if I do want a database at a later date a spreadsheet can be the start of one.

Gordon Lee,I love how you know exactly what you have!I have a hunch you are more disciplined than I am but I am thinking in terms of a spreadsheet. Thanks for the list of column information - I think I would add condition (incase something is a space filler)
I am thinking outloud here ... I think I would add a column for topic or thematic information in case of swapping with a topical collector.
Also an advantage to your own spread sheet is that if I designed my own pages much of the information would be written up!

JanetC,Your collection sounds like me ...partly organised

As much as I would love to use a Stamp inventory program, I just don't see where I would have the time to utilize it. Looking up ID numbers takes me an un-godly amount of time and by the time I'm done sometimes I'm so frustrated I just want to walk away from all the piles of stamps on my desk. All very organized piles I might add!
But then, I wonder, what would I do with the data? If I was actively selling, yes - I think an inventory program could be beneficial.
And then again, Maybe if I started using a program I would see benefits? Maybe.
But right now, slapping stamps in the blank spaces in my album and throwing the duplicates into a stock book or envelope is about as organized as I am right now.

I had that question too - but I started to look at the stamp swapping sites and realised a basic want list would be useful. Then I thought of spreadsheets but I am not sure I would need a full blown inventory. The main use I can see for an inventory is that you could have a field where topical and thematic information was recorded. That way if you want to swap - and your swapping partner wanted birds well the information would be there. I think a database would be a bit much for me however. I am leaning towards a spreadsheet with lots of notes! 

Stamp Manage "add stamp" screen

I have never ever kept any sort of inventory of the stamps in my collection. I have no idea of value and really, honestly don't give a monkeys as to the value, I am never going to sell my collection. I am 99% sure that when I finally shuffle off this earth that my sons will give it all to a charity shop. For the most part I have a pretty good memory for what is in my collection (lousy memory for just about everything else).