Miniatures - Storage/Cataloging/Finding

[klarg1]

I am currently in the midst of constructing a set of retail-style peg boards that can hang over the back of my closet doors, hanging blister packs off of standardized straight pin hooks.

 

I'll take some pictures tonight to illustrate what I mean.

 

As for cataloging: There were a few threads about it a couple of years ago. I used to try keeping at least my new stuff in a database, but I have fallen *way* behind on that. In my perfect world, I would start all over again, and do a better job, but it would take months to do a proper inventory. (assuming I could even find everything. )

[ub3r_n3rd]

Really not simple trying to decide on a very organized storage system for all these many 20 miniatures in my umm ... collection! I don't want to hang them via pegboards, so it's looking like drawers with dividers or areas for each monster type or race/class. I'll want it able to hold many more 20 unpainted/unassembled as the collection continues to grow. Really I want sleek, organized, & good looking stuff to hold the figures and being able to quickly/easily access/find anything I need.

 

Keep the ideas coming!

[vegascat]

You could always go with a storage shed, though I'm not sure how well it'd fit into your hobby room.     

[Doug's Workshop]

Ask vendor: "What have you released since last Gen Con?"

Buy.

 

At least I don't get duplicates . . . .

[ub3r_n3rd]

You could always go with a storage shed, though I'm not sure how well it'd fit into your hobby room.

Bwahahahaha! Needs to fit elegantly in my new hobby room!

[Gadgetman!]

Cataloging... 

When I started cataloging my minis I searched through every email I had for the word 'mini', 'pewter' and a few others, then did a copy/paste over to a text file, where I stripped off all the extra crap and organised it a bit.

Then I set up a spreadsheet in LibreOffice, with one 'status' page and a new page ofr every major manufacturer I've bought from.

 

On those sheets they're listed as SKU, Series(Dark Heaven, Burrows&Badgers, Kritterkins and so on) name(with a number in parenthesis if it's a set), how many I own, how many on order, how many I want to buy, and comments.

 

On the status page I have one line for each manufacturer and in the next column I use the formula =SUM(Reaper.D2:D10000)  to get the number of owned minis for Reaper to show up. (Assuming that the page for Reaper Mini is actually named 'Reaper' of course. Also, the command I use is =SUMMER, which only makes sense in Norwegian... )  

There's even a column for 'Painted'... 

I tried using their DB, but... that ting really freaks me out. 

 

For efficiency reasons(OK, I'm lazy) I have a 'Template' page also, which is formatted like the rest, ready to fill in stuff like company name, website and so on, which I can just copy and rename whenever I get enough from one manufacturer to warrant a separate page. 

And yeah, there's one page 'Assorted'... 

 

Why does my formulas go down to row 10000 ?

Honestly? 

I counted the minis I'm expecting from Bones 3, and came to 181, not counting scenery and weapons. 

And there's stuff such as a starting set of 20 skeletons for 'Kings of War' from Mantic... 

If they're painted and used in different dioramas, not kept as a cohesive unit, I will need to create more than one entry for the set so that I can add comments for them all.

 

I may add the year they were bought, which storage box they're in and maybe even when they got painted, later, to produce statistics, but... yeah, with my speed... no.

 

Map drawers... 

I know that my office scrapped Metal A0 size drawers like that a couple of years ago. And we're talking 2' high units... 

(We're only using hanging archives these days)

 

Not that drawers like that is all that difficult to make if you have a decent table saw and access to decent materials.

[warlordgarou]

My organization method of charitably described as a "pile," "heap," or "mess."  The uncharitable is "[explitive] pile of plastic and metal".  I am (slowly) buying cases and organizing things by army (since I am primarily a wargamer), but for RPGs, I would probably have one case for PCs, one for townsfolk, one (or eight) for monsters, etc. 

[Sylverthorne]

Prepainted plastics are assigned to bins; monsters, human(oids), beasts, demons, elementals, undead, that kind of thing.

My fragile metal minis ... um.. I have a case. If they are painted, they live in the case. If they're small enough. If they're larger, they sit around looking pretty.

 

Unpainted everything.. I .. don't really have a system. I'm thinking I had better fix that, but I haven't figured out how yet. >.>

[ub3r_n3rd]

For painted finished figures I have a corner curio cabinet and plan on getting another when the first is full. So my main thing will he ease of access and plenty of storage for the mainly metal and resin figures that are unpainted and Unassembled.

[kristof65]

For efficiency reasons(OK, I'm lazy)

I'm sorry, but the rest of what you describe in your post about organizing your miniatures is not by any definition of mine, lazy.

 

Lazy is my friend who has all his Bones minis stored unpainted in a plastic bucket...

[Pingo]

Please be aware that wood storage can trigger lead rot.

 

This *only* applies to lead miniatures, not pewter, plastic, or resin.

 

And I am not sure, but I think it is worse with new wood than old.

 

The thing is that wood outgasses gaseous acetic acid (vinegar), which is one of the triggers of the corrosion we call "lead rot".

 

I saw one curator recommend nonreactive storage, like polyethylene ziploc baggies, for lead artefacts specifically.

[Grayfax]

Cataloging... 

When I started cataloging my minis I searched through every email I had for the word 'mini', 'pewter' and a few others, then did a copy/paste over to a text file, where I stripped off all the extra crap and organised it a bit.

Then I set up a spreadsheet in LibreOffice, with one 'status' page and a new page ofr every major manufacturer I've bought from.

 

On those sheets they're listed as SKU, Series(Dark Heaven, Burrows&Badgers, Kritterkins and so on) name(with a number in parenthesis if it's a set), how many I own, how many on order, how many I want to buy, and comments.

 

On the status page I have one line for each manufacturer and in the next column I use the formula =SUM(Reaper.D2:D10000)  to get the number of owned minis for Reaper to show up. (Assuming that the page for Reaper Mini is actually named 'Reaper' of course. Also, the command I use is =SUMMER, which only makes sense in Norwegian... )  

There's even a column for 'Painted'... 

I tried using their DB, but... that ting really freaks me out. 

 

For efficiency reasons(OK, I'm lazy) I have a 'Template' page also, which is formatted like the rest, ready to fill in stuff like company name, website and so on, which I can just copy and rename whenever I get enough from one manufacturer to warrant a separate page. 

And yeah, there's one page 'Assorted'... 

 

Why does my formulas go down to row 10000 ?

Honestly? 

I counted the minis I'm expecting from Bones 3, and came to 181, not counting scenery and weapons. 

And there's stuff such as a starting set of 20 skeletons for 'Kings of War' from Mantic... 

If they're painted and used in different dioramas, not kept as a cohesive unit, I will need to create more than one entry for the set so that I can add comments for them all.

 

I may add the year they were bought, which storage box they're in and maybe even when they got painted, later, to produce statistics, but... yeah, with my speed... no.

How do you ever paint anything?!? 

[Gadgetman!]

We who are lazy always look for more efficient ways of doing things. Those few of us who are REALLY lazy will sometimes even expent slightly more energy in the beginning in order to save a lot of work later. 

I know WHAT I have, and mostly even where I have it, just by looking in a spreadsheet. 

 

Starting the spreadsheet was the big part, and took me a couple of hours, then it was just a bit of follow-up as I added new minis.

 

When I browsed a site, I might notice a mini I liked, write it up in the spreadsheet with a '1' in the want column. Then, later I might find that a site has a discount going on, I check the spreadsheet(status page lists how many 'wanteds' are for each brand) which makes it easy to check up against what that site sells. 

And as the order goes through, I change it to a '1' in the 'ordered' column, and write a comment on when and where it was ordered. 

And finally, when the package arrives, I can easily compare the manifest with the estuff on order and change status to 'inventory' and remove the comment. 

This makes it easier to follow up on delayed orders, too, as they're pretty easy to spot in the system. 

Much easier than trying to search through all my emails... 

 

The Bones 3 minis are all listed as 'on order', but are lacking SKUs, yet. In fact, not all of them have individual lines, even. 

The same is any other KS I'm expecting a mini from.

 

I could have put everything on a single sheet, and made it even easier to search for say, 'Gnoll' but then I would need to tightly define DATA areas so that I can sort the minis of one manufacturer on SKU or series or whatever. 

Or I could have set up a MySQL db on one of my websites, and have it instantly accessible no matter where I am. That would be really nice, but too much work for too little gain.  (Yes, I own a couple of domains, and one of them is dormant, with just a placeholder page) 

 

Getting anything painted?

Oh yeah, I should probably do that, too... 

[Pingo]

As for my unpainted minis, I don't file them by brand, but by type, and I file them rather like files on my computer, files nested within files.

 

I store Bones separately from metal figures, and keep lead figures (of which I only have a few) quarantined as well, in separate mini ziplok baggies to guard against the spread of lead rot, should it occur.

 

At the bottommost level of organization I will have a figure, sometimes still in its blister but mostly in a small ziplok baggie including its identifier snipped off the blister card.

 

Figures with similarities of type or context are grouped together into a bigger, labelled ziplok baggie, for example "Pirates" or "Bones Woodland Encounters" or "Superheroes".

 

If I have enough of those thematic bags I will put them together in an even larger ziplok bag, such as "Bones Baddies (Human)" or "Giants, Ogres, and Big Bruisers".

 

If a bag gets too big or unwieldy I break it up into smaller categories.

 

Some of the group bags I store in small drawers, others in boxes (I have a single drawer for "Shadowrun" and "Doctor Who" figures and a box for "(all other) Sci Fi").

 

This means that when looking for a figure I'm generally dealing with a reasonable number of labeled storage spaces.

 

It's not a perfectly logical system. Things could be in more than one place (For example, dinosaurs could go with real-world animals, where I generally have them, or with bird-monsters or jungle monsters or reptilians.). I sometimes move things around as they make more sense to me.

 

My painted figures are layered in bubble wrap and stored in plastic bins (for the Bones ones) or smallish boxes for the more fragile metal. I have one box for all the PCs currently in play in the various games I'm involved in.

[Grayfax]

Clearly I do not have enough unpainted figures!  I must work on this more diligently!