A is for Archiving

I thought it might be useful to look at how I organize my collection, and deal with the mass of information/data that a collection of this kind tends to generate if you approach it in the anal manner I do!

Taking the Darleks I got the other day as a prime, recent example, here is a quick guide to archiving a new arrival in the collection;

The loose set gets put in a click-shut bag 4x5 1/2 inches (none of that jumped-up French artilleryman's metric shite here!!) with an index card that has the maker, the set title and whether or not it's a complete set written-in.

Two sheets of A4 paper are also headed with the manufacturer and/or brand, one is given a plastic sleeve and the remains of the packaging, the other gets a thumbnail sketch of the company history, other sets, piracies...anything relevant - sculptors, contact details, box types, colour variations, dates, scale, material etc...etc...

The 'detail' sheet then goes into the A-Z 'Book Manuscript', this is for small scale figures only (15mm-45mm) and currently extends to two volumes with about 500 companies listed and appendixes. In this case the sheet slips between Preiser and Pressman.

Had the items encountered been a figure-less space ship or box of trees, tractors or terrapins, this sheet wouldn't be raised at all, but Darleks are figures and these were around 25/28mm in scale/size, so the sheet is added.

The sleeved ephemera gets slotted into the larger multi-volume files on all things military and civilian - toy & model - Metal, card and plastic. Lying in between Premier and Pressfix, this leaver arch file is one of two for the letter 'P', being Po-Q.

If the item of packaging or ephemera is by a larger/more common company like Hornby, Lego or Airfix it has it's own dedicated file, series of files or other storage box.


Finally the carded set goes in a larger box with other examples of boxed, bagged or carded 'minor makes' (which I haven't bothered to photograph) while the de-carded set goes in this box of loose minor makes, nestling between a bag of Politoys spare AFV crewmen and a loose complete set of Pressmen Scooby-Doo board-game figures/playing pieces.

Obviously, with the exception of Pressman, the adjoining makers are different in all three archives, so....I'm starting to create a forth digital archive, which entails something along the lines of the first sheet above as a Word Doc. which itself is then put in a file with all images, scans and stuff pertaining to that company. This is a slow business, but as I get on top of one - it will go on the A-Z Blog in simplified text format as a list of known figures/products.

At the moment this is not yet really working either as it resides between a different Premier and Primo! Also cross-reference files and separate lists of ships/vessels, food premiums, space ships etc, need to be brought together...when I'm a hundred-and-five it should all start to make perfect sense!