Do You Catalog Your Buck Collection? If So, How?

[pjsjr]

The problem with storing photos on Imgur is they can go out of business and they can raise their premium plan price

You are right, any and all of the digital formats are subject to the whims of the ones who control them.

 

[pjsjr]

I'm falling a bit behind and I guess 70% of my collection has not been photographed.

I can remember(not really remember) only a few that you have posted multiple times!!
Roger your method makes my head and eyes hurt

 

[DeSotoSky]

You must own a very large number of knives, Roger

Only 20 (if I take off my socks )

Here are the horizontal fields I use in excel
I fill out a paper worksheet with the same fields and hopefully catch up entering in the computer.

Buck Knife Inventory Worksheet Date

Inv. ID
Model
Name
Description 1
Description 2
Steel
Date Code
Cond
Sheath
Box
Box Date
Model Code
Cat #
Cost
Source
ID

 

[DeSotoSky]

I use an Excell spread sheet, based on the Larry Oden for sale list.

I'm praying for the day when Larry moves away from handwritten lists.....
I wonder if anyone ever generated all the Buck date codes so they can be used in Word as special characters.

 

[bertl]

I'm praying for the day when Larry moves away from handwritten lists

I do a screen shot from Larry's list for the knife I buy. Then, I print the screen shot for my info.

Bert

 

[Happy Hippo]

I do a screen shot from Larry's list for the knife I buy. Then, I print the screen shot for my info.

Bert

I am usually too late and you guys already bought everything.

 

[Old Hunter]

I use an 8-1/2” x 11” legal pad, each knife gets a line written in black ink. I get about 25 knives on each page, if I gift, sell, or trade a knife I write in the date and who it went to in red ink. I have one set for Buck, one set for Case, and one set for Schrade USA. Unfortunately I have never cataloged the Boker, Camillus, Utica, Victorinox, Wenger, GEC, Western, etc., so date I bought them, what I paid, where I got them, etc. is lost to me (some I remember, but many I don’t).
Ps. The Buck Knives actually get a full description on their list, three or four lines, the Case and Schrade are one line entries.

 

[bertl]

In addition to the spreadsheet inventory, I do a small writeup for each knife—some writeups are short, some a bit longer.

Bert

 

[pjsjr]

In addition to the spreadsheet inventory, I do a small writeup for each knife—some writeups are short, some a bit longer.

Excellent Bert. I wish I could have started that early in my accumulating/collecting days.

 

[bertl]

I wish I could have started that early in my accumulating/collecting days.

So do I. I am still playing catch up.

Bert

 

[dsutton24]

I use Libre Office, it's a free suite of office tools, and is excellent.

Each knife gets a spreadsheet page that records all of the specifics plus one of my trademark Crappy Photos™. Each page gets stored to my computer. It also gets printed - I lost my catalog some years ago and it had to be re-created, quite a chore. Backups are good. Periodically I print a list of knife stock numbers. That's a handy quick reference that fits in a shirt pocket.

It all gets copied to a small tablet that goes with me to gun shows and the like. I search for minor variations in materials and methods, and I don't like to buy duplicates, so ridiculous record keeping is a must.

 

[Old Hunter]

plus one of my trademark Crappy Photos™.

 

[pjsjr]

I use Libre Office

I've tried that, must have been doing it wrong, it just took so long to enter one knife with specifics. I'll look at it again.

 

[bertl]

I wonder if anyone ever generated all the Buck date codes so they can be used in Word as special characters.

If you took a screen shot of symbols from one of the date code sheets and put them on a reference page then you could insert them in text and adjust the size In fact you could just take a screen shot from the original date code sheet.

Bert

 

[texpat]

If you run Linux, there's a program called Symphytum you should check out, it's basically a sort of spreadsheet GUI that's simpler and easier to work with than Libre Calc or excel and includes pictures, my wife is using it to catalog the book inventory at our local library. Program is archived now so no active development, but it works great still.
https://github.com/giowck/symphytum

EDIT: Well I forgot, there's also versions for Windows and Mac for that program too!

 

[pjsjr]

there's also versions for Windows

Thanks, I'll try and check it out.

 

[Railsplitter]

I use an Excel spreadsheet. I keep my knives in various storage cases.

My storage cases each have slots (or grids) for each individual knife. I create a “grid” on the spreadsheet that matches the grid layout of the display case. For example, the Pelican case that I store my 112’s in has 21 slots. 7 across and 3 down. My spreadsheet mirrors those 21 slots. 7 across and 3 down.

On my spreadsheet I have 5 lines per slot to type in the necessary information about each knife.

Then I transfer the spreadsheet to a flash drive and attach the flash drive to the Pelican case. I don’t personally need the flash drive myself. It’s there for my wife. In case anything happens to me, she will have all the information about my knives on the flash drive which she can plug into any computer and print the information off if she wants to.

 

[texpat]

I actually made myself a note-taking app this last week, just realized it will work great to catalog knives and guns etc.

 

[pjsjr]

If you run Linux, there's a program called Symphytum you should check out, it's basically a sort of spreadsheet GUI that's simpler and easier to work with than Libre Calc or excel and includes pictures, my wife is using it to catalog the book inventory at our local library. Program is archived now so no active development, but it works great still.
https://github.com/giowck/symphytum

EDIT: Well I forgot, there's also versions for Windows and Mac for that program too!

I actually made myself a note-taking app this last week, just realized it will work great to catalog knives and guns etc.

I checked and could download for Windows 7, 8 and 10, but I have Windows 11. Do you know if it will work with 11 or will I have to find another?

 

[texpat]

I checked and could download for Windows 7, 8 and 10, but I have Windows 11. Do you know if it will work with 11 or will I have to find another?

Should be, seen reports of it working in 11. You should get whatever you want to try from the main github page: https://github.com/giowck/symphytum/releases

There's a version called Symphytum_windows_portable.zip which is kind of the windows version of an appimage, you could try that first and if you like it do a conventional install later using the .exe version. That's basically what I did when I first tried it. The wife absolutely loves it, she's catalogged almost 3000 volumes so far with it.