Catalog Your Coin Collection

Three fields carry a coin

A coin is identified by less than most collectibles and priced by more. Denomination, year of minting and mint mark get you to a specific issue — a 1921 Morgan Dollar with a D is a Denver strike and a different coin from the same year out of Philadelphia, which carries no mark at all.

TrophyShelf gives the mint mark its own field rather than folding it into the name, which is the difference between a shelf you can search and a list you have to read.

What a coin records

The type is Coins — 🪙 in the picker, and the name box suggests 1921 Morgan Dollar, which tells you who wrote it. Seven fields of its own, plus the universal ones.

Which fields identify the coin?

• Denomination — free text, so 1 Rupee, 25 Cents and £2 all fit as written.
• Year of minting and Mint mark — together, the issue.
• Country of issue — a list of 197, which matters more for world coins than for anyone collecting one country deeply.
• Material / composition — gold, silver, copper, nickel, bimetallic or brass.

Why is the rarity scale worth using?

Because it is written in numismatics rather than in general collecting: Common, Uncommon, Scarce, Rare, Very rare and Key date.

Key date is the one that matters. It is not a step above “very rare” — it is a different claim, that this is the issue a series collector cannot complete without, and it is why a 1909-S VDB sits where it does. Having it as a value rather than a note means you can find every key date on the shelf at once.

What is the Certification number for?

A slab. If the coin has been graded by PCGS or NGC, the certification number on the holder goes here — 2851764-001 — and it is the field that ties your record to a public lookup anyone can verify.

📌 Unlike a watch serial, a cert number is designed to be looked up, so it is not a privacy risk in the way a serial is. It describes the holder, not your house.

⚠️ Where does the actual grade go?

The description, and this is the honest gap in the type.

Coins are graded on the Sheldon scale — MS-65, AU-58, VF-20, PR-70. TrophyShelf’s condition control offers the universal six instead: Mint, Near mint, Very good, Good, Fair, Poor. There is no numismatic scale, and there is no Grading section on this type either — the graded-slab segment belongs to trading cards, where a PSA number is the object’s public identity.

So write the real grade at the front of the description, in the form the market uses: MS-65 (PCGS), or VF-20, cleaned. Fill the certification number beside it. Between the two, the record is accurate even though the dropdown is not.

📌 The app knows. The schema carries a conditionScale hook for exactly this, unused so far, and the code comment beside it says grading banknotes as Mint/Near mint rather than UNC/AU/XF is “the kind of detail collectors read as the app not taking their category seriously” — logged as an open question rather than fixed by invention. Coins are the same case.

What will the AI not fill in?

Condition, and every purchase fact: Paid, Est. value and Where acquired. It reads what is struck on the coin — denomination, year, country — from a photograph, and leaves the judgements to you.

Which for coins is the right split anyway. Grade is decided under a loupe at an angle, not from one photograph, and a model guessing MS-65 off a flattering shot would be inventing the most expensive number on the page.

Do it in TrophyShelf

1. Create the collection and pick Coins🪙 in the type picker. Split by country, series or era — whichever way you already think about the cabinet.
2. Photograph obverse, reverse and the markBoth faces straight on, then a close shot of the mint mark and any toning. Slabbed coins: shoot the label too. Up to 10 photos.
3. Fill denomination, year and mint mark firstThose three are the issue. Everything after them describes it.
4. Put the real grade in the descriptionMS-65 (PCGS) at the front, because the condition dropdown cannot say it. Add the certification number in its own field.
5. Mark the key datesSet Rarity to Key date on the issues that complete a series — it is the fastest thing to search for later.