Project: generate my own coin catalogue

[tjaart]

Hi all,

I had some free time over the December holidays and finally managed to start on my (long term) idea of having all my coins shown in a type of catalogue similar to what some auction houses do. Since I started collecting, I kept all the data about my coins in a simple text file but in a structured way. A new coin gets added in the exact same format as all the others. I have always envisioned being able to use this text file to automatically generate the latest PDF catalogue of the specific subsection of my collection. To start this project, I focused on my main campgate collection. For those wanting to skip the details, see the attached PDF for a sample of my campgates from Aquileia and the uncertain/Barbaric ones.

In order to do this I first had to get photos of all my coins. This is still an ongoing process and I rely on dealers photos as far as possible. Currently I try to take photos of ~10-15 coins per week. Each photo is labelled uniquely and added to my text file. The text file is currently structured as follows:

line 1: Emperor name and year of coin issue
line 2: Obverse description, obverse legend
line 3: Reverse description, reverse legend
line 4: Mintmark
line 5: Reference
line 6: Dealer, dealer reference and any comments
line 7: Measurements and cost.
line 8: File name of the coin image

As I can program a bit, I then use the Python programming language to parse the textfile into a usable format for another Python script that generates the LaTeX output. LaTeX (the X is the Greek Chi) is a scientific/mathematically orientation typesetting language that is highly customisable and generates gorgeous documents. It allows me to replace almost any greek letter or symbol with the correct representation e.g. delta is rendered as a Delta symbol. I used it for both my Masters and PhD dissertations. This LateX output is then converted as a PDF. I attach two separate pages to show the result. In the document, the entire collection is sorted alphabetically by mint name (and in the future by RIC number). Having this process now allows me to generate an up to date PDF with all the details I need for my campgate collection. The black lined campgate in the document is a placeholder image for photos I still have to take.

I still have a couple of improvements to make:
1. I need to do automatic sorting by RIC number.
2. Where RIC numbers are the same, I need to sort by Greek letter in the mintmark.

I must say that I am very pleased with the outcome so far. Although the photos are not uniform, I can live with it for now.

Hope you all enjoy the result as much as I do!

Tjaart

[Victor]

It looks good...I know it is a lot of work, but it is labor of love.

The hardest part might be getting good photos of all the coins. I like all my photos with white background.

I still struggle getting decent photos of some coins. My setup shoots nice pictures of some coins (bronze with regular to dark patinas) but I have to make adjustments for silvered.

[livingwater]

Hi tjaart,

That will be an impressive way to record your collection, really cool.  I have a document file listing all my coins with cursory info and cost.  I also have a photos folder with pics of all my coins mostly in alphabetical order.  The photos are described briefly.  The flips have most of the information.  I took pics of most of my coins.  My ancient coins photos folder is 1.82 GB.  Just to be safe in case my computer crashes or house fire, I keep a backup hard drive of this all with the coins at the bank safety box.  I collect a few modern coins/bullion but that pics folder is only 187 MB.

As a side note, I also keep on the backup hard drive scanned family photos and videos.  I've seen numerous times on TV people crying cause they lost family photos in a fire.

[Doug Hill]

Tjaart, awesome start on your campgate catalogue, looking foward to more.

Doug

[tjaart]

Thanks for all the comments!

@Victor: I agree with that the photos are the most difficult part, especially the silvered campgates. At the moment I shoot by hand with 60mm Canon lens, in-built flash and a desktop lamp.

@livingwater: Backups are very important. I run a NAS at home that makes a backup every night at a predetermined time. I also use to store the main text files I have in Dropbox but since they stopped supporting most Linux file systems, I can no longer use them. I also used to run a spreadsheet documenting all the coins I bought including shipping costs etc. but these days I only use it for non-ancient coins (if I remember). This spreadsheet was a Google sheets so it was online and thus always available.

@Doug: I hope to one day finish all the photos and make a gallery similar to yours on Forvm. 

I just managed to finish the photos of my first tray of campgates, those up to the Antioch mint.

T

[tjaart]

Hi all,

I am glad to report that after almost 22 months, I have finally managed to finished photographing my entire collection of campgates (close to 400 by now)! I made a real push over June/July/August to try and photograph, crop, adjust and finish at least 10 photos a night. In the end it paid off. I also managed to code in automatic sorting by RIC number, followed by automatic sorting of Greek letters in the exergue and managed to get some retrograde letters in. So that means that every section (city/mint) is now sorted first by RIC number, then for identical RIC numbers, sorted by Greek letters in the exergue. I attach a sample of page 1 of unofficial section.

I have also changed my photography setup slightly, I still shoot by hand using a 60mm lens, but use a gorilla stand to stabilise the camera. I also found out that white paper is not actually white In order to compensate for that (and the lack of proper light) I overexpose every photo by 1 (also allows for a faster shutter speed) and then in post processing I increase the exposure by another 1. In addition I also used an f-stop of F13/16 to get some depth of field to ensure the entire surface of the coin is in focus as well as a shutter speed of 1/125 to minimise any blurring. This effectively removed any background colours and left the coins matching their real colours almost 100%.

This exercise also allowed me to clean up my coin data a bit as well as adding size and weight to every single coin. A couple also had to be reclassified.

I must say I am personally very proud about this little project and am very glad this is finally done. I have a spent a number of hours just admiring the PDF and scrolling through it 

Tjaart

[Victor]

congrats, it looks great. I'm sure it was a lot of effort, but nothing worthwhile is easy.

[Heliodromus]

Looks very nice - must be satisfying to have consistent photos for your whole collection. It's daunting to have so may coins to process, so kudos on keeping up the daily effort to get it done!

Enjoy the gloating - an underrated aspect of collecting.   

[tjaart]

Thanks everyone! Yes, having consistency amongst the photos and descriptions are really satisfying :-D

Now to just keep up with taking photos when a new coin arrives.

T

[ambr0zie]

That was my idea as well but I am not that organized.
My ancient coins collection is quite small, just 106 coins, and this is only because I have just bought 29

For the moment I keep Word or txt documents with coins, one document for each purchase - i.e last month I bought 11 coins from an auction and created a Word document with them, using snapshots with the picture and description from the auction house + notes I wrote, description of the obverse, reverse, RIC/RPC number.

I bought 29 today, 16 individual purchases and one lot of 13 coins, I will create 2 new documents when they arrive.

I arrange the coins cronologically, in documents but using the exact order I bought them in, and they are also arranged in this order in the album.

I don't like photographing coins and  I get frustrated when my pictures are awful, even after multiple attempts, so if I don't have pics from the dealer, it's a pain.