My autograph collection has grown to a point where I decided I finally need to put some serious effort into protecting the collection and getting it organized. I have 10 years worth of e-mails and scans with purchase info, provenance, pictures and authentication documents which is going to take a fair while to sort through. To this end, I am taking two steps: 

1. Getting the collection insured. I chose to purchase a policy from Collectibles Insurance Services given their reputation and my residence in the US.
2. Second, I am starting to look at software which I can use to manage the collection and its wide array of documentation.

I have looked at various desktop software packages, including simple databases and spreadsheets. None of these traditional methods easily meet my needs as the collection now consists in excess of several hundred pieces (I am embarrassed to say I don't have even a somewhat accurate catalog piece count at this point). Given this stack of information I have to sort through, I have started to look strongly at some of the various on-line collection SaaS (Software as a Service) Providers - aka "Cloud Service Providers" - who offer collection management software web services. I am looking at a couple different paths here:

• Open source software, such as Omeka (www.omeka.org), or
• SaaS providers such as RelicRecord (relicrecord.com) or the cloud version of Collectify (www.collectify.com/collectify-cloud).

A Google search along the lines of the second option can easily get into library or museum scale archive software which is WAY beyond the scope and cost of my needs. As such, I have been focusing on smaller scale offerings. They are out there but they take a bit of digging to find.

My ideal scenario is an option where I can achieve a few major goals:

1. Track value, provenance info, acquisition history and other key information for each piece in my catalog.
2. Tie authentication documents and receipts to each item in the catalog;
3. Generate an inventory list and reports with financial information for sake of insurance (a requirement to file an insurance claim with any insurance vendor); and
4. Create a list of artists associated with each catalog item and be able to search for said artists across the entire inventory. This is particularly of value when dealing with a single piece that is signed by my multiple artists. The idea here would be to search for a given artist and find all pieces in the collection signed by that artist. Further, being able to link to biographical information from an external site such as Wikipedia would be a real nice touch in order to provide biographical information for the artist(s) on a piece as way of providing supplemental information for the signed item.

At this point I can achieve most of the above goals with RelicRecord, and I am strongly considering their "Deluxe" offering at only $12.95/month to achieve this goal. I could probably also achieve something similar with Omeka, but this would take a fair bit of time to set-up and configure (for those with a technical background).

I wanted to put this topic out to the AML community to see if any of the other members who use sites similar to RelicRecord or Collectify to manage your collections and, if so, to see if there is any feedback or recommendations to these various SaaS providers. I realize that this topic is perhaps more in-depth than required by some collectors. By the same token, its a topic I have not seen discussed in much depth on AML before and I would assume I am not the only one having this type of requirement.

My thanks to the community for any feedback, thoughts or other useful information on this general topic.  Being stuck at home for these many months has given me the time to finally begin this long over due project.