how do you store your trade stock, and coins for pending trades?

8 posts
Hey all,

I love trading but the housekeeping drives me nuts, especially when a trade gets called off. I'm curious how you all handle the logistics of it. First I'll outline my process.

1. Available trade stock is stored like this, separated with little tabs by country.



2. When a trade is being negotiated, I remove coins from the red box and scan them, then place all of the coins involved in the trade in a ziploc.

3. If the trade is confirmed, coins are sent to their new home. De-selected coins, or those involved in trades that are called off, go back in the box.

Simple process? Too detailed? Not detailed enough? Seems like it takes me forever to find the correct coin or replace it in its position in the box. Maybe my boxes are too crowded for easy searching.

How do you do it?

Thanks.
I store all my coins in binders (except for USA). 1 of the binders are all my coins for swap; I’m surprised it’s still intact with the amount of coins in there. I don’t really have a certain order in there, so it takes me a while to look for one coin. When I find it, I put it on a table by my bed and wait for the swap to be confirmed, if not, the coin goes into the first empty space I find.

Hi Tim. My system is similar to yours but perhaps a little more detailed. I use one large old jewelry box so I dont have to go through different boxes and like you, sort the countries alphabetically with a tab. Then I organize the country from smallest denomination and oldest date first and continue from there to the largest demonination and end at the most recent date. For colonial countries like The UK, I keep all its former and current territories and possessions (British India, British Honduras, Carribean territories, Ceylon etc ) also with tabs just behind the colonial country also in alphabetical order. Its a bit of work in the beginning but makes finding what you want very easy. I too pull all coins being negotiated and can then find exactly where they were very quicly if the coin was not part of the agreed upon swap. Hope that helps.
Quote: "littlebluedog"​Simple process? Too detailed? Not detailed enough? Seems like it takes me forever to find the correct coin or replace it in its position in the box. Maybe my boxes are too crowded for easy searching.


​Sounds just perfect to me, but maybe it's because I use an extremely similar system. ;)

Not just for swaps, but also for storing/categorising my collection in general (only my 3 slabbed coins and my Tokens and Exonumia aren't in a box like yours). Since I primarily collect pre-1945, I don't have many post-colonial coins, so I also store colonial issues next to their coloniser.

I don't have the countries in any particular order though; they're only sorted by four trays (which I put 5 dividers into to create 6 "boxes" per tray), and my coins are sorted in the four trays as Europe, More Europe, British Empire, Rest of the World.
I started collecting a few years ago, so I still don't have all my collection ordered.

I have several ring folders to put them, that I got in 2 sale offs, so they are brand new, but still don't have as much plastic pages as I need for them.

For the countries I already have ordered, I print a grid with same dimensions as pockets in the pages, and I put the description of the coins (having them or still not), so when I get a new coin I just put it in the correct place.

The coins for swap, and those still not organized, I have a ziplock bag for each country, with the coins in it, then all bags in a bigger one, by first letter of the country.

When starting a swap, I will look the coins, if the coin is from an "organized country", I know those in the bag are all doubles; if not, I see what I have marked to swap and for collection and I take off the correct coin.

All coins for a swap go to a bag with partner name, so I don't mess them, and wait till confirmed, I also put a comment in page listing like "reserved for xxx, and date" if the swap is not completed, I would take the coins back to the corresponding bag by country and erase the comment. If swap is done, then I would update the listing and erase the comments.

The date is to know when a coin was reserved, so if the swap is taking too long I can decide if I can grant it to a newer swap, or just wait some more time.
Just 10 options: you understand binary, or you don't.
Catalog Referee Coins, Banknotes & Exonumia: Uruguay, Cuba, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Paraguay, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador, Zamunda, Parva Domus and more.
I have a (for me) very easy working system.

All my exchange coins are in a plastic box with dividers. European coins are organized by alphabet (one subsection). Coin from other parts of the world are organized by continent since I don't have that many doubles from oversees but could easily extend that if necessary by using a second box.
If I have many swap coins from one country they get a separate subsection, e.g. all my US quarters are separated by year.
If I get new coins for my swap list I just have to drop them into the right subsection.

This allows me to grab coins selected in a swap within minutes.
I pile them up and and add a name tag until the swap is confirmed.
ONLY then I take them out of my numista swaplist. I don't hassle with writing 'reserved' behind each coin that someone selected. I believe unless you're constantly having 5+ swap or so it's not needed because it cost you a lot of work and from my experience most of the people on numista don't read these comments anyway.
(I once had a sealed set of coins that I could only swap at once and I noted so behind each coin. Guess how many people chose like 1 or 2 coins out of this set...)
I suppose how you store and order them are different for everyone. Some can be confusing, and some can be easy to sort through.

Me, well, you know, I sort of just have... like... a box... with 1008 coins in it(8.

Cheers,
William
Here it's mine...it got sorted nice and cute just some weeks ago :)
Picture 1-stock by continent>country and when needed,by types>years...everything in zipbags with cardboard sheet inside:


Picture 2-upper shelf-work area-bunch of tools,cardboards,stamps,pen,paper,envelopes,coins to be sorted out before getting at lower shelf,etc:



by now works good,and don't occupy much space...if needed it may get sorted out even better:)
Topic locked (Numista Robot, 24-Apr-2019, 08:04)

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