Friday, November 16, 2018

Card Collecting: Need Help with Tracking

Question: How to keep track of the information about the origin, details, and history that I learn about
each joker?

Answer - Very much a Work In Progress - I'm playing around with this idea for a sort of Google docs spreadsheet based database.
Where did this come from again?


I'd like an easily updated system which somehow sits on the computer (hopefully in the cloud) and which links to my physical collection. I'd also like to have it available online, perhaps part of this blog or a new system, so that other collectors can help contribute to it and use it

I also want it to help me keep track of duplicate jokers for trading purposes. Right now, the duplicates either get slipped in behind the original in the albums, kept in boxes by category, or left in a big pile for sorting.

Any ideas? I just started looking around by looking for some sort of image matching software and I'm looking right now at Bolide, image matching software.


One second generation collector,  Tom van Berkum, sets a high standard for his information on each joker.   Each joker gets this sort of description:

"Patience 12223" - A.G. Müller, Neuhausen, Switzerland > 1960. 52 cards + 2 jokers + 1 blanco. 61 x 43 mm. GvB0764

Which he explains like this:

When I post a joker or deck I always try to mention the name or brand of the deck. In this case: Patience 12223. Second I mention the manufacturer: A.G. Muller. Then city/Country and year: Neuhausen, Switzerland after 1960. Then: number of cards in the deck: 52 plus two jokers 1 one extra,blanco, card. Then the size of the cards in millimeter: 61x43 mm. The code GvB0764 refers to the initials of my father and the number in his collection. This was deck 764 he obtained. After his passing away in 2008 I decided to keep this system of organising. All the info of the deck he kept in a database. That is my main source of info and he was very accurate 🧐

Here's another example of Tom's incredibly high quality information (from Facebook):



What I don't understand is where to keep this info and in what format (also of course how I'm going to gather it for the 3K plus jokers that I already have assembled):

  • Should I have a big text file on the computer with a description and  picture of each joker?
  • Should I print out a page from this text file for each page in my collection?  (ie keep them in groups of 9)
  • Is there some database system that would be useful for this?
  • Should I take an image archiving system, say Flikr or Google images or shutterfly, and add a description of each joker? It turns out there are image management packages.
  • Maybe the image matching software is the right way to start?
  • Maybe each print out isn't by page it's by section of the joker collection

Joker Organization Today: My jokers in pages, in sections, inside three ring binders.


Card Collecting Albums
The jokers are in clear plastic pages of nine so that viewers can see the front and the back. Each nine tries to be a balanced page related to the pages around it and in a category of between 2 and 25 similar pages. A few categories to a book.

For example, here's a page of jokers sitting on barrels, it's one of eleven pages of jokers sitting. Other sections in sitting including sitting on the crescent moon, seated sideways (like Owlman), and sitting cross-legged (like the Piatnik). The sitting section is one of two in a medium size three ring binder.

Jokers on Barrels


Crescent Moon Joker Backs

Jokers Sitting on Crescent Moons

Seated on Barrel Joker Backs
But this blog is also part of the organization with some fascinating descriptions of jokers but no real way to retrieve or find it. Examples:

1895 or 1927?

1 comment:

  1. Note. Solfrid's system as explained on Facebook 11-16-2018: Solfrid Johanne Thunestvedt I give each category of jokers a letter from A-Z (A=standing B=brands C=cartoon D=animal etc). When I put the joker in album I put a small post it note in the corner of the back with the matching letter + a number (started with 1, next is 2: A1. A2, A3.... A215)
    I use Windows Excel program to put all the info i want about the card in the matching cell. This is in my Google account, so I can open the file wherever i want as long as the device supports Excel.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for your input and for reading and thinking about jokers.