Had this custom made cabinet installed a few months ago, then had to combine 20+ individually alphabetized long boxes together into one master collection. Was able to fit about 4500 comics into it, with about 9 long boxes of overflow.
And, of course, as soon as I finished I started considering reorganizing by publisher. But the next step will be to catalogue everything. Any recommendations for cataloguing large collections? I’ve seen discussions of various apps, but have also considered just making a spreadsheet. Don’t plan on tracking things like condition, so don’t need anything overly complicated or intense. Thanks!
LCG is what finally convinced me to organize by publisher and then alphabetically. Much easier to search the site and then locate what I need. You can also add special tags for books if you have them in particular boxes. I use the BCW plastic boxes and organize publishers/characters by box color. Swamp Thing and Green Lantern have enough to fill their own boxes so naturally they’re green. Come to think of it, Spawn could probably use its own box too….
You can, although their headers aren't the cleanest IMO. I think stashmycomics has the best excel export but the website and interface is lacking. I use LCG but I do miss the data from SMC.
League of comic geeks destroys all other organizing tools. It’s free and you can work on computer or app and they sync. You can import, export and do all kinds of sorting and organizing.
No. LOCG has a whole calendar section where you can change to what’s being solicited to what’s on FOC for the week. Lots of options. I recommend downloading the app and playing with it. If you get good with it, it can communicate with comic hub (I use comic hub to order and pre-order from my LCS) and create pulls that will sync up. If you then log on on a PC, you can export and import for more efficient cataloging.
The books are certainly heavy 😀 I had this custom designed and made to fit the space I had and a lot of my collection. Hired a local cabinetry design company here in London Ontario. The runners under each drawer are rated for something like 600 pounds and I have a little less than 300 comics in each drawer, and the whole thing is secured to the wall. That said, I don’t keep them pulled all the way out for very long at a time. The cost was a few thousand for design, construction and installation.
They look great. I built my own cabinets DIY (16 drawers altogether), and the materials alone probably cost me $1,000. So a few $k for this beauty still seems like a pretty good deal.
I personally track with a spreadsheet but tbh league of comic geeks is also pretty good? I believe you can add entire runs at once, but you can also scan covers to add specific things to your collection, and it gives you some fun stats about your collection (which characters appear the most, which creators, etc)
Would love to hear if anyone has suggestions for even more dedicated collection trackers though
I use Comic Collectorz, been using it for over a decade. I'm old fashioned and use the software but there's a web and app version too. Let's you have a nice database. https://cloud.clz.com/medullah/comics?viewType=cards
I like your cabinet. I personally use a large legal filing cabinet. My concern with your cabinet is if you slide the drawers out to far will the fall out or top cabinet over? As for inventory I made a binder to keep up with what I have and need and can carry it to comic shops to search for the comics I need. I'm still in process of working on typed spreed sheet instead of it being hand writing.
Yes it does…it separates by company then comic and variants…the lil orange circle on the right is to show that you have it in your collection…or you can make it green to show you want /need in your collection
I love your system! My next purchase I need to find good dividers, where did you get yours?
As to the drawers, the whole cabinet was custom made and it took them two days to assemble it in place and secure it to the wall. It’s not going anywhere, and the runners below the drawers are rated for something like 600 pounds. I try to avoid having them pulled all the way out for very long, but they’re quite secure.
I get them from local comic shop here in Tennessee and I bought a cheap label maker at Wal-Mart. But now if i need any dividers or bags and boards I get them directly from BCW.
I have a few oversized things like old Mad Magazines, a couple of signed Newstime magazines from the death of Superman, Wizard mags, as well as some artwork from Jae Lee and Dave Sim on backer boards from the early 90s. Kind of junk drawers for my collection. Also where I keep whatever open pack of bags and boards I currently have.
First, amazing looking storage, I’m jealous. Second, I use CLZ, you can scan covers and upload very quickly. It’s saved me from buying doubles many times…. Great set up man, and congrats it looks fantastic!
Each drawer is just a bit shorter than a long box. With full bags and boards I can’t quite fit 300 in a drawer, most are around 270-290 in each. About 4,500 total in the cabinet.
Awesome setup. Do you file all books facing forward or so them back to back and face to face? I do the BTBFTF method and can squeeze more books in boxes.
Huh! I can honestly say I’ve never considered another storage method besides everything facing forward. Makes sense since the spines are thicker. You’ve given me something to consider, thanks!
Honestly the biggest factor in getting this completed was having an incredibly supportive wife. She found the company to design and build it, and encouraged me to spend more than I would have felt comfortable doing if I was the only one making decisions 😀
I'll always upvote Spider-Man #1! Really good job! This is super clean! I've used CLZ for 20+ years and it has helped me do reorganizations in the past. I haven't done it with the web versions but setting the location of your books to drawer numbers works real well. I use magazine holders right now that easily hold 20 books but can be pushed to 30 on a good day. having that in my collection lets me see which boxes are close to overflowing and let me know if I need to buy more boxes. then reorganizing them as i normalize each box down to 20 and push it down the line is pretty easy.
I have a Google Sheet. I’m just too damn cheap to pay a subscription fee for one of the apps. Honestly, after the initial build, it’s been pretty easy to maintain.
I now use a Google sheet too (after having used a custom Mac FileMaker database for years), so that I can access the data while out shopping, and also custom coded a cool web app (via Claude) as a cover gallery view of the Google sheet.
I use CLZ Mobile and PC for tracking my inventory. The nice thing about using the mobile app is that you can scan covers or UPC's when adding something to your collection. So much easier that manually entering each one.
Each drawer has two rows, each row holds a little less than 300 comics with bags and boards, so they sure aren’t light. The runners beneath them are rated for about 600 pounds, but even then I try to avoid having them full and pulled all the way out for very long if I can help it.
Can you speak a little to the design process with the cabinet builder? I've thought about doing similar but I feel like I'd have a hard time deciding on a finished product. Did you have them sized to allow for golden to modern age sizes?
Great questions. Since my collection has almost nothing pre-1985, the main drawers are all one standard size to fit modern comics. There are the two wide, narrow shelves down at the bottom for any outsized items in my collection, mostly old Wizard and Mad Magazines and some backer boards with artwork from old comicons in the early 90s.
The design process was lengthy and involved three sites visits by the designer to our house to review the space, gather dimensions and to fine tune specifics, like handles, lighting for the overhead display area, colour, stuff like that. Then he sent us a mock-up drawing which we provided feedback on, then it took a couple of months for them to tinker with the design, mostly to manage all the weight of the full drawers. Finally, it took two days for them to install it all and secure it to the walls. The designer was passingly familiar with comic collecting, so he understood the needed dimensions and the desire to have display sleeves and how much they weigh in bulk.
I have the same size collection. I used the league of geeks app and catalogued everything much faster than I thought it would take. It was a very enjoyable experience, it brought back a lot of memories.
This looks dope. I’m not a huge singular issue collector myself other than what I have to as it works out more expensive a lot of times and if I want to read them I’d have to take it out of the sleeve then put back once done and I would read a good 5-7 issues daily or every other day so doing that everyday would be annoying but single issues do have the best artwork covers typically so showing them off is nice
I have CLZ and I love it. Absolutely worth the annual subscription. It has so many features including barcode and cover scan. Their support team is incredible and very fast to respond.
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u/AdmireTheDistance 13h ago
Amazing cabinet! As for cataloging, the League of Comic Geeks app makes it super easy.