Private collection catalogues

At last, a printed version of my catalogue supplement 2008-2009! Troubles with my printer and lack of time gave considerable delay in producing some printed examples of my bi-annual supplement to the new catalogue which I started in 2000. Some Dinky friends got a pdf version already, since it was complete as early as last March. The supplements standard contents are an introduction memorating all personal Dinky events of the period in question, a main body including photographs, descriptions, comments and provenance of the newly acquired models listed, an alphabetical index and several appendices i.a. presenting the acquisitions in systematic and chronological order. Everything is kept up-to-date in the computer file, but, as explained, yearly or bi-annual supplements are printed only. The work on it, containing full size articles per model, is huge, and the editing has prevented me from printing a new overall catalogue for a long time, which would be counting some hundreds, nearing a thousand, printed pages now. I would love to know how many of you, fellow DTCA members, control your collection, as registrating and cataloguing is concerned. How does your private catalogue look like? It would be interesting for all of us to be inspired by those examples!Below some sample spreads from the latest supplement: Kind regards, Jan Werner

Wandering around a little bit I rediscovered this 'tread'. Left without any comment in the past five years it seems that no-one keeps a registration of his collection . In the past website-less period I directed my Dinky Toys activity towards my own collection and after two months of hard working on it I managed to fully update my Dinky Toys catalogue and remove a retardation of five years since my last supplement of 2008-2009, as shown above. The result is that my catalogue increased with approximately 20.000 words from 290.000 to 310.00 at this moment, including full descriptions, essays and illustrations of all models acquired in the period in between (in which my professonal writing had full priority and attention). Non-Dutch collector friends repeatedly regret that it is only in Dutch and ask for a version in English. Well, I hope you will excuse me: Dutch happens to be my own language! Still, I have found a kind of solution, which Mike Forbes, editor of The Journal welcomes. I will supply a stock of incidental translated descriptions for inclusion in issues in The Journal in the near future. That is a more feasible and acceptable construction for me in order to share some descriptions and illustrations of favourite Dinky items of mine. In the mean time I am considering a complete new concept for my catalogue, laying more emphasis on printed photographic quality. That's for the future! Kind regards, Jan

Jan---Sorry none of us have written a reply or followup to your original post on your cataloging efforts. You and I have traded some private correspondance on this subject, as your efforts inspired me to start one of my own. I think it can be a daunting task, as most of us have sizeable collections. When I started mine, the first thing I had to do was decide just what it would consist of......what will I include, how big will it be, how long will it take? After seeing some samples of yours, I started thnking about what I would do, and what program to use. I ended up using Microsoft Publisher, along with Photoshop Elements, and have it about 90% complete as of now. My first intention was to clearly catalog my collection, with some pertinent information about each model, along with 3 photos of each model, so I ended up standardizing a format that I could then use for each page. I thought about doing a descriptive writeup on each model, including some history of both the prototype and the Dinky version, but I quickly realized that, for me, that would be a very large project, taking a very long time to complete, so I went with an easier route so at least my catalog will be done and complete. My thoughts are to then do some supplements, going in to more detail, and allowing more photos as desired.Thanks Jan, for offering some advice, sharing some of your work, and mainly inspiring me to do it! Terry

Terry, no problem, of course, see the smiley.There is no obligation at all to reply to every post submitted. Yes, it's true, we had private contact on this matter, and I hope you have made satisfactory progress with cataloguing the collection (as it seems). It is a tough and disciplined job indeed, and it depends on the necessity of making it and especially the fun some people - like you and me - have doing so. I can very well imagine that it's not everybody's 'cup-of-tea'. Still, it would be interesting to hear/see from other enthusiasts how they do the job of somehow administratively managing the collection digitally and/or in the form of some kind of presentable printed record with text and/or images. Kind regards, Jan

Jan--Thanks for your always thoughtful reply! I know we shouldn't expect a reply to every topic listed, but one as broad and interesting as this one should have. I sure hope we do hear from others, as I would think some sort of catalog would be desirable for most of us. Part of my motive, besides the fun and satisfaction of doing it, was to provide some sort of written record of my collection in the event something happened to me. I am sure I am not alone in the fact that no one else in my family has the slightest interest or knowledge of my Dinky collection.....they tolerate it and admire it, but that's it! So please, the rest of you, let us know your thoughts on this............. Terry

Circa 1955 I build a list of French Dinky Toys which was not yet available as there has been no publication and Meccano s.a. was not willing to publish that list. This list was printed into a ring file. The French list was followed by the English list around 1958. I did not know of Gibson's book at the time. I then made a page for each model with a picture by cutting catalogs and copying Meccano Magazines. At that time, casting and colour variations were not known so it was quite easy. But the catalogs contain many errors which could not be known at the time. In 2002 digital cameras became available at a decent price and this made photos available at a very small price. Being retired, I started a new catalog on my Mac. It took me some time to learn the .html language and to define a standard page with some pictures, some data on each model etc... I also added many pages on copies of Dinky Toys, wheels and tyres, books, boxes, pat ents, catalogs,code 3, scales, manufacturing flaws, registrations of Dinky etc. You have a question, the answer is probably in there. The catalog soon turned out to be a full Dinky catalog rather than my collection's catalog. The file grew and grew with the help of my TMT friends. It is still growing almost everyday. Ten years ago I thought that other collectors could be interested in my catalog and adapted it so it could be used as a web site with menus, hyperlinks etc... Burnt on a CD the catalog is available to any collector and so far 425 have been made.

... and the rest is history ... Thank you Jacques, for your 'the making of'. In library terms your (private) catalogue turned into a (universal) bibliography. In Dinky terms your Dinky Toys catalogue turned into a Dincography. Kind regards, Jan

How wonderful Jacques that your early catalog efforts lead to your very useful Dinky Toys Encyclopedia; I got my copy a few years ago and find it indispensable.....thanks for producing such a valuable tool for us.Terry

Thank you, Jacques, for the insight into the genesis of the Dinky Toys Encyclopaedia. You showed wonderful foresight in the way you have constructed it. Younger collectors -- are there many these days -- will have no idea how difficult it was to find out information about Dinky Toys before the initial publication of the Gibson 'bible' in 1966, and really for some time after that. Other books (such as the Grielsamer/Azema 'Model Cars of the World' from 1967) had only partial lists of French Dinky Toys. And of course in many countries outside the UK the Meccano Magazine was difficult or expensive to come by.When I was a teen my best friend and I kept card files with an entry for each Dinky we had learned about, but there were constant wonderful surprises as we learned about models we had never dreamt of. Later on, in the very early days of computers, I made a list of all the models I actually had, but this effort quickly got left behind following marriage, raising a family, and several transatlantic moves. Today it is all mostly in my head, alas.

Hi all, almost six years have passed since I opened this thread with the announcement of my 2008-2009 catalogue supplement. After all these years I have completed my next Supplement 2010-2015 to the collection catalogue this week - at last. All these years in between occupied me with other business. Retired now this was one of my first private projects to be executed and I am quite happy now that my collection has the up-to-date catalogue it deserves again. Although in Dutch I presume you might appreciate to see a glimpse of it, just some random spreads of the 154 pages. Some of the entries, each consisting of photos, description and comment of the model concerned, have been adapted, edited and translated into English for my 'From my Dinky Toys catalogue' contributions to The Journal. Kind regards, Jan

Splended piece of work, Jan. Now you can start the other project. Ragnar

Thank you, Ragnar. But I was thinking about taking some days off ... !