Collection Value

[aurax]

So, the reason I started my own tracking efforts was to keep a detailed list in case I ever needed it for insurance purposes (fire, theft, etc.), so the backbone of my list has two components - figure ident and price. Since I started building my list a couple of years ago, it's taken on a maddening life of its own, and I now track monetary value in two ways: what I spent for a figure, and what it's now worth. (I track worth data by checking completed eBay auctions periodically.)

With that data, I can get a quick look at what I've spent in the past 12 months (or any other time period), which months I spent more, average price per figure, plus the total fair value of my collection should it need to be replaced.

That's all food for thought. I don't know if you want to turn the db into some customized version of Excel.

But, with the retail value field, is it possible to do something like "Total Retail Value of Your Collection" and just summing up that dollar value field for everything we have checked as being in our collection?

[shmax]

So, the reason I started my own tracking efforts was to keep a detailed list in case I ever needed it for insurance purposes (fire, theft, etc.), so the backbone of my list has two components - figure ident and price. Since I started building my list a couple of years ago, it's taken on a maddening life of its own, and I now track monetary value in two ways: what I spent for a figure, and what it's now worth. (I track worth data by checking completed eBay auctions periodically.)

With that data, I can get a quick look at what I've spent in the past 12 months (or any other time period), which months I spent more, average price per figure, plus the total fair value of my collection should it need to be replaced.

That's all food for thought. I don't know if you want to turn the db into some customized version of Excel.

But, with the retail value field, is it possible to do something like "Total Retail Value of Your Collection" and just summing up that dollar value field for everything we have checked as being in our collection?

You've got a valuable brain, and I would love to see more of it around the forums. You have stumbled upon the secret purpose of this site, the one feature I had chiefly in mind when I began work on it almost two years ago. The only reason you don't already see it is that dynamically tracking the eBay value is a going to be a horrendously difficult task, especially when you consider that they have yet to update their category tree. But yes, some version of that functionality, effective or not, will be coming down the pipe, though it may still be several months. You may see pieces of it appearing before then--for instance, it would be relatively trivial to let users enter what they paid for a particular toy, and so if not a proper appraisal, we could at least generate a base value.

I'd love to hear more feedback from you--if you have time, I'd be grateful if you could go over some of the other threads in the Features forum, and see if you can think of anything to add...

- shmax

[aurax]

Dang. Some high praise from the Superuser. Thanks.

Believe me... finding this place has cleared out some cobwebbed portions of my brain and got me rethinking about all of this afresh. As the rest of my life allows, I will be chiming in.

One problem I couldn't quite wrap my head around in my design process was the whole issue of variants. What does one do about a red versus a yellow G1 Bumblebee, or the three in-line variants of Armada super-con Prime (and that's not counting Nemesis)? Is each one an individual package?

One of the ways I was leaning in solving this (aside from just putting my fingers in my ears and going "lalalalalalala" until I forgot about it) was to have a handful of variations checkboxes (variant1, variant2, etc) that would in theory attach to pictures and text displaying/describing each variation.

The problem I ran into with this solution was that I couldn't figure out how to build a function to establish a valid count for the checkboxes; i.e., if a figure had no variants, I would set a master variants-allowed variable to 0 and none of the checkboxes would respond to input, and if it had two, the first two boxes could be checked, etc. I know there's a way to do it... or at least there should be. Some sort of data validation subroutine or something.

It was about this point in my thinking that this whole issue almost caused an aneurysm, so I set it aside.

I think, at some point far off on the horizon, this db will have to wrestle with that issue. There are some almost crazed variant collectors out there who have devoted a tremendous amount of time and energy into tracking these things down. In case you're not aware of this site, it is absolutely indispensable when thinking about variants - Fred's Workshop. It'll make your head spin. I think if you're going after that powerhouse collector, the db's going to need some powerhouse capabilities for them, like Variant Tracking.

So anyway, yeah, I'm on board to help as much as I can. I'll probably start posting some resources of info that may or may not be familiar to the rest of the board, but will be useful points of reference. I'll get around to that either Thursday or (more likely) this weekend.

[shmax]

One problem I couldn't quite wrap my head around in my design process was the whole issue of variants. What does one do about a red versus a yellow G1 Bumblebee, or the three in-line variants of Armada super-con Prime (and that's not counting Nemesis)? Is each one an individual package?

I see what ya mean, but if Hasbro didn't bother to solve it, why should I? The red and yellow Bumblebees have the same UPC numbers, the same product codes, and the same assortment numbers. The only thing keeping them from being the same exact toy is that some wonk at the factory poured in the red resin because they were out of yellow, so that's the approach I take. I simply call one red, and the other yellow, give each a database entry, and never the 'twain shall meet:

http://www.shmax.com/results/1?searchTerm=mechatron (Erm, I don't have the red Bumblebee)

Good enough? I admit this is off the top of my head, as I'm still sort of a newb in all this, but I'll take a look at Fred's workshop and see how deep the damage really goes. Thanks for the info...

- shmax

[ScottyP]

This is a big reason why this site looks like a great resource for me.  I lack most practical computer skills, unfortunately, so I won't be of much use contributing, but I can definitely see myself using this list if something bad ever happens to my collection.