How to use it

Adding something to your catalog

Press + Add at the top of the Collection tab. Pick which collection it belongs in from the dropdown at the top of the form, fill in what you know, and press Save. Nothing is compulsory except one of a catalog number, a maker or a name.

The catalog number is filled in for you: the app looks at what is already in that collection, works out the pattern, and offers the next one. Type over it if you want something else. If you pick a number that is already in use it will say so rather than quietly creating a second item with the same number.

Photographs

Press Add photos at the bottom of the form. On a phone this offers the camera. You can add several at once, and the first becomes the one shown on the card. Each is shrunk before it is uploaded, so a catalog of several hundred does not fill your Drive.

To remove one while you are still editing, press the × on its thumbnail.

Dates you only half know

Beside every date box is a chooser: Full date, Month and year, or Year only. "Bought it in 1962" is a real answer, so record it as one rather than inventing a day. Whichever you pick is remembered for next time, and sorting and the year filter treat all three the same.

Choosing which fields a collection uses

Different things need different details. Open the add or edit form and expand Fields shown for <collection> underneath it. Tick what that collection should ask for and untick what it should not. Books get ISBN, decoys get rig mates, calls get original box — and none of them have to carry the others.

A field holding a value always stays on screen even when unticked, so nothing you have already recorded can be hidden from you.

Fields of your own

In the same panel, add a column of your own and say what kind it is: text, a long note, a number, a date, yes/no, or a list of choices. Choice fields get a dropdown, and you can add a new choice from the form itself when something turns up that is not on the list.

What things are called

A collection can rename the standard fields for itself. On a Books collection "Maker" reads Author and "Original box" reads Dust jacket. This is set by a labels row on the Settings tab of your spreadsheet.

Finding things

The search box across the top of the Collection tab looks at catalog numbers, makers, names, notes, dates, companies and where a maker is from. Type several words and all of them have to appear somewhere.

Underneath are the filters: collection, maker's state, year purchased, a date range, a price range, and Missing — which is the quickest way to find the gaps in your own records. Pick "Photo" to list everything you have never photographed, or "State" for every maker whose home state you have not recorded. Clear filters resets the lot.

Sort by reorders what you are looking at: catalog number, newest, oldest, price or value either way, or by maker.

Prices and values

Show purchase price and Show value are off by default, so you can look at your catalog in front of somebody without showing them what you paid. They stay off until you turn them on.

Looking at one item

Click any card. You get the whole record: photograph, every field that holds something, and the notes.

• Click the photograph to see it full size. Arrow keys or the ‹ › buttons step through when there is more than one. Escape closes it.
• The maker's name is a link — click it for that maker's details.
• Rig mates and "Traded for" are links too, and open that item.
• Find online opens a web search for the maker and name in a new tab. Nothing about your catalog is sent anywhere; it is an ordinary search.

Marking something sold

Press Mark as sold on the record. Fill in who bought it, for how much, and the date, which defaults to today. The item moves to your Sold tab with every column the two tabs share, and its photographs go with it. The catalog number stays behind so the slot can be reused.

Deleting

Delete asks you to type the catalog number before it will unlock. It removes the item and its photographs, keeps the catalog number, and cannot be undone.

Makers

The Makers tab lists everyone you own something by, whether or not you have written them up. Click a maker for their details: where they worked, the years, what you own by them, and your notes. From there you can edit them, jump to your items by them, open their reference link, or look them up on the web.

A maker's state lives here rather than on every item, so recording it once fixes every item by that maker at a stroke.

Only makers I own is ticked by default. Untick it to see everyone you have written up, including makers you are still hunting.

You can give a maker a photograph — a portrait, their shop, or their stamp.

If you make things yourself

A collection can be marked as things you make rather than things you collect. That drops the fields that make no sense — maker, company, original box, what you paid, what it is worth — and turns on a set that does.

Set a Status of Available, Sold, Traded or Donated and the form changes to match: Sold asks who bought it, for how much and when; Traded asks who you traded with; Donated asks where it went and what it raised. Available asks only your asking price. You never see boxes that do not apply to the answer you gave.

The Where they went map on that tab colours the country by where your work ended up.

Wish list

Things you do not own yet. Record the maker, what you are after, the most you would pay and where they are from, and add a photograph of an example if you have one. Filter by type, maker or state, the same as the main collection.

The state maps

On the Collection tab, switch from Cards to State map. The country is coloured by how many of the items currently on screen have a maker from each state — so it follows your filters rather than always showing everything. Click a state for the list, and click any item in it to open that record.

The map takes its colours from the catalog's own palette, so two catalogs do not look alike.

Reports and insurance

Tools → Report builds an inventory: totals for what you own, what you paid and what it is worth, then summaries by collection, by year, by maker's state, by maker and by company, then every item one by one.

Choose all collections or one, order by catalog number, maker or date purchased, and switch photographs, prices and values on or off. Press Print or save as PDF and only the report prints — not the filters, not the menus.

Sold items are always left out; it is a record of what you have.

Tidying up your records

Duplicate maker names

Tools → Maker names finds names that look like the same person — "O. Quam" and "Oscar Quam" — and merges them in one move. Choose which name to keep, untick any that is really someone else, and confirm. If a group is wrong, These are different makers dismisses it for good, and that is remembered in your catalog rather than in one browser.

There is also a Rename any maker box for a name you just want to correct.

Missing states

Tools → Missing states lists every maker you own something by with no state recorded, busiest first. Pick a state, press Set, and every item by them is covered.

Books and ISBNs

On a collection with the ISBN field switched on, type or scan the number and press Look it up. The title, author, publisher, year and page count come back, and Use these details fills in only the boxes you left empty — it never writes over something you typed. The cover becomes the book's photograph if it has none.

Scan it uses your camera to read the barcode, on browsers that can. Chrome on Android and on a computer can; if yours cannot it will say so, and typing thirteen digits is no great hardship.

If you scan something you already own it tells you which one, with a link to it.

Sharing your collection

Tools → Share makes a page anyone can open, with no sign-in and no Google account. Tick which collections to include and what to show about each piece, write a heading, and choose one of two ways to put it online.

What it never contains: what you paid or what anything is worth. Those are not options that can be switched on. Nor your spreadsheet, nor any link back to your Drive.

Publish it

Puts the page on collector-catalog.com at an address nobody can guess, with a switch to take it offline again and a button to delete it for good. You can publish as many pages as you like — one for the vintage calls, another for what you make — each with its own address. Taking one down leaves the others alone.

Or host it yourself

Download the share files gives you the same page as a folder to put on any web host. Nothing of yours goes to anyone else's server on that route.

Your own logo and contact details

A logo of yours goes at the top of your published pages beside the heading. Email, phone, website, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and one spare link of your choosing appear as buttons underneath. Anything you leave blank simply does not appear.

Keeping a page up to date

A published page is a copy, not a window onto your catalog. Add something and the page does not change until you press Change what is on it and save. The address stays the same, so links you have given out keep working. Deleting something from your catalog does not remove it from a page published earlier, either.

Colours, light and dark

Click your catalog name at the top right, then Appearance & colors.

Light or dark is your own choice and is kept per device. The palette belongs to the catalog, so if you keep more than one you can tell them apart at a glance — and it looks the same on every device you open it on.

Phones, tablets and other computers

Open the same address and sign in with the same Google account. Everything is in your spreadsheet, so there is nothing to sync and nothing to move across.

On a phone, use your browser's Add to Home Screen and it opens like an app. Photographs are cached the first time you see them, so a second visit is quick.

When something looks wrong

You changed the spreadsheet directly

Click your catalog name, then Reload from the spreadsheet.

A photograph will not appear

Reload the page. Photographs are kept in your browser after the first view, and clearing your browser data for the site clears them — the originals are safe in your Drive and download again.

A red band across the top

Something in the page stopped working. Your catalog is unharmed: it lives in your spreadsheet, not in the app. Reload, and if it keeps happening use Report a problem.

Telling us about it

Click your catalog name, then Report a problem or suggest something. It attaches which build you are on, which screen you were on and what your browser is — and shows you that text before you send it. Nothing about what you collect is included.

If you are reporting a problem, the build number at the bottom of that same menu is the single most useful thing you can tell us.

Where your catalog actually lives

In a Google Sheet in your own Drive, under your own account. The app runs in your browser and talks to Google on your behalf; it has permission to touch only the files it made and the file you handed it, and none of your other documents.

That means you can open the spreadsheet and work in it directly whenever you like, and that if you stopped using this app tomorrow your catalog would still be there and still be readable. Publishing is the only thing that copies any of it anywhere else, and only the parts you tick.

The privacy policy sets out exactly what is stored and when.