I just did something I've always meant to do.

Status
Not open for further replies.
E

ezypikns

Member
Joined
Jul 16, 2004
Messages
1,336
Location
Dallas, Texas
I'm really ashamed to admit I hadn't done it until now. Tonight I listed all my firearms by manufacturer, model number and serial number, and put the list in a safe place (actually a couple of safe places), along with a digital photo of each. It might be small comfort if any of them were ever stolen, but at least I can report them as stolen if they are. If you haven't done it, it's probably a good idea.
 
I've done most of that, except for taking pictures. I'll do it this weekend when I get back from college.
 
I find a good safe place is to email that info to my hotmail account. If i lose the house to a fire or my pc and document safe gets taken , its a pretty easy offsite place for record keeping.
 
I need to do that same thing. But in addition to that, for my own protection during a "legal inquiry" should it ever come up, ESPECIALLY after the '08 elections, is snail-mail myself a listing of what I own with serial numbers where applicable, number of magazines and their capacities for each gun and photocopies of all recipts. When I get it back, I will NOT open it. During the aforementioned inquiry, I will note the POSTMARK DATE, which is allowable in a court of law, then open the list and ask if they have anything else they'd like to know.

P.S. to mudpuppy - DO NOT trust hotmail or yahoo, I lost 2 hotmail accounts and one yahoo account. I don't know why they were deleted and I got no answers when I checked into the problem. If you'd like a gmail address, I can send you an invite, just PM me your hotmail and I'll get you set up. It's free and right now has over 2800mb of storage.
 
I've done the same thing. I keep a paper copy and two CD/DVD's in different places. The DVD& CD are RW so I can add in the future as I add to the collection
 
I never understood the whole "mailed myself a letter" deal. It is a myth that it would mean anything in any court, patent law case, copyright dispute or anything else. The US copyright office specifically points out all over their website that it means zero.

I can send myself an empty unsealed envelope and have it around to fill with whatever I feel like later.
 
Last edited:
Good work! Everytime that I add or delete a firearms (or bow) from my collection, I modify my list. I detail the following in my spreadsheet:

Column A
Make, Model & Serial number

Column B
Price Paid

Coulumn C
Cost to Replace

Column D
Digital Photo(s)
 
I did that back in the mid 80's when I got my first personal home computer. I made of list of every firearm and the serial numbers and stored them both as a hard coy and a digital copy and have been doing it ever since.
 
Thats a good reminder for all of us. Be sure and keep one copy on the web or at work in case you have a house fire.
 
I keep a running "household inventory" spreadsheet and am usually pretty good about keeping it up to date. In addition I take the digital camera and just walk around the whole house about once a year and take photos room-by-room. I don't get too detailed, just open a drawer and take a picture. Open a closet and take a picture, etc.

I burn it all to two DVD discs, one stays in the house, the other sits in a lockbox that the inlaws let me keep at their house.

It's one of those jobs that basically takes the better part of a day, but is well worth it for my piece of mind.
 
This sounds almost like a niche need for database software of some sort.

Using MS Access it would be quite easy to set one up. You can even have a field that links to your digital pictures.

If the designer set it up right and saved it as an MDE, users wouldn't even need MS Access to use it - just the runtimes anyone can DL from MS. Hell - they'd never even have to know they were using Access if put together right. AND...

It wouldn't have to be restricted to firearms.

Hmmmmmmm... :cool:
 
Werewolf,

Was that an offer?
Click to expand...

Since I really need to catalog, photograph etc my collection and since I'm pretty much what is normally referred to as a GURU when it comes to Access I may work something up. BUT - that's dependent on how bored I get some weekend, how much I want to catalog my stuff and how interesting I think building such an app would be. The part about making it an executable where the user doesn't need access installed would be the interesting part.

The kind of thing I was thinking of wouldn't take more than a few hours to put together. I wouldn't error trap either as that adds considerably to development time so if I made it and posted it here anyone using it would be on their own.

Am I volunteering - not exactly but if I do create an app for me to use I'd post it here or a link to it so anyone who wanted to could use it themselves.
 
I simply use MS Excel. I have one sheet & file for Guns another to track ammunition boteh what I have and what I want.
 
I only have handguns, so I just throw them all in cardboard boxes. I dig through a box to find what I fell like shooting any particular day. When a box gets full, I kick it under the kitchen table and start another.




































:neener:
 
Some members can just use their forum signature to keep track.

Seriously though, I have an Excel spreadsheet that I've been keeping up for about 8 years...it is just a record of gun description, serial #, purchase date, seller and/or FFL used and then a similar set of columns for if/when I sell it.
 
MudPuppy said:
I find a good safe place is to email that info to my hotmail account. If i lose the house to a fire or my pc and document safe gets taken , its a pretty easy offsite place for record keeping.
Click to expand...

I prefer Google Notebook - http://www.google.com/notebook/ - as the account doesn't expire from inactive use, like Hotmail does. (I don't use Hotmail, so keeping such an account just for these records would likely expire from disuse.)

Also, if you keep everything in an Excel spreadsheet, use the free backup service at Mozy.com to back stuff up -- I use that to back up all my documents, in addition to gun records.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top