Hey all, as I am trying to re-acclimate myself to the pulse of D&D/Game collection after a LOONG hiatus, I realize my memory of what I have is flawed... great gaping holes of knowledge have fallen down the memory hole.  

Where I used to be able to quickly scan Ebay auctions and posts here and mentally tick off not only what I had but which printings, I'm 'rediscovering' my collection and realize I have almost no clue what I have any more.

So, to get myself organized, I was thinking about writing a little utility that would let me punch in basic info, product code, title, publisher, printing, condition and a link to a picture.  A 'checklist builder'

If I did this, I then realized, it would not be THAT much more work to let anyone use it over the internet, which brings me here.

Would this be useful for anyone besides me?

One 'network effect' I thought of is that we could cross reference dupes and holes in collections and create a mini-flurry of trading to complete collections.. and/or flush out new editions (I could take scans of specific items).

It would also be fun to be able to offer 'virtual tours' of other people's collections (and not to mention the 'E-Peen' of showing your massive stack of modules off to the adoring throngs of people who want to be your love slave because of the hot hot hobby of D&D collecting... right guys?)


Down the road, for rarities I could even envision a 'pedigree' of sorts for tracking who owned what and who they sold it to.

It's my opinion that even the biggest collection has only a few thousand items and I think I could also manage an image library function linked to entries to show the actual item.

If I did this, and it was something you wanted to use, any suggestions on fields that would be useful?

edit: 300th post! woot

For my own collection, I have a Microsoft Access dbase, but without visuals that is really just a way for me to keep track of my own collection, including its overall value and gradings of different items. I haven't really thought about putting it online.

We could possibly attach some feature to the Acaeum wiki. I'll look into it.

bbarsh wrote:I like the overall idea. I use Excel right now. Maybe limit exposure to Acaeum members instead of the entire web. Just a thought.

I'd probably play around with it, but wouldn't likely use it seriously. For one, my memory is tremendous (this is not necessarily a blessing, but in this case it is). Also, to control my sometimes overwhelming collecting compulsions, I've instituted a "one bookcase" rule. i.e., I have one (largish) bookcase and, "If it don't fit it don't get bought." Occasionally something gets bumped in favor of a new acquisition, or I become creative with space and the display strategy. So mark me down as "Yes, but I say yes to everything."

D&D checklists exist.

Could you create a better one with all the different pics/versions?  I suppose.  But you'd presumably be grabbing all the info from here and ToT to do it, which is questionable.

I have a spreadsheet that combines my want and have lists, and keep my want list as a separate text file.  That's plenty handy for my needs.

A coupla things would be great... that the Acaeum is lacking form the descriptions:

Have a publication date for each item... I can't believe that this site doesn't have at least the original copyright date for every item... let alone one for each printing.

Also Acaeum is lacking the TSR Stock # for each product...

Am I crazy?

TOT has these things... but why wouldn't this site?

I think the best start would be TSR from 1974 to 1989 (right before 2nd ed.) Including ALL non-D&D games like Gamma World, Empire of the Petal Throne, etc. and all the war games and boardgames.

Then once the format is perfected you can start adding beyond and other companies.

I only collect TSR up 'til 1985/6. I currently have 147 TSR Items cataloged, only 109 are D&D related with the rest being other Pre-1983 TSR products. I will be photographing them 5-10 per week over the next few months until I have every one documented with Front, Back, title page and Catalog page plus any unique pages or items.

I would be happy to contribute in any way I can.

bbarsh wrote:
http://acaeum.com/library/stocklist.html

Right but why not put that tiny 4 to 5 digit code right in the item descriptions? I don't even know how to access that page through the front door here... I've had to bookmark it the last time I googled to find it.

I think I could build it 'wiki-ish' so that as people put stuff in, we could update the content and build a good database.

If you want to add notes about printing differences, who did the art..etc.. it could probably be accounted for.

Plus, I think I'd just start with the TSR classic AD&D 1st and earlier and let people add stuff as we went forward.

I definitely do not have the time to do all the data loading up front, but I think we could do a 'stone soup' approach and chip away at it over time.

I've got a busy few days ahead of me work wise but this really isn't too far off base of a project I'm building for an insurance company that wants to track who's got what forms in stock at their offices.

Swap out "Actuary Tables for Non-Smokers Over 60" to "Against the Slave Lords" and we're almost there! (I hope I don't mix those up!)

edit:

TheMilford wrote:I would use it.

hopefully I could import my excel list into it.

Are you saying that the app would find ebay auctions for you?

You raise a good point... importing Excel or CSV would be a good way to gain participation.

Wasn't thinking about auto-magically searching Ebay for gaps but it's a good idea.  Down the road though, assuming this gets off the ground.

319 items... NOOB!

Just kidding.

Hey man, I don't mind your project at all.. I think it's cool.

It may have some 'junk data' in it but you're trying to clean it up and frankly, it looks like you built what I was considering building but I had a more esoteric focus on collecting.

Hmm...

Believe me, it's more fun being a NOOB at the start of collecting than have thousands of things and all that's left is stuff that will cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars.