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Écrit par Alex Ren
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Spreadsheet or app? How to keep track of a card collection, and where each one breaks
En brefA spreadsheet is the right tracker for a small collection you enter by hand and value rarely; an app is the right one for a collection you add to every week and want valued today. The spreadsheet breaks at a few hundred rows, when typing printings by hand becomes the hobby; the app breaks the day you cannot export. Most collectors should use an app that exports a spreadsheet, and here is what to require of each.
Dans cet article
Every collector tracks their cards somewhere, even if it is a memory. The question is what the tracker needs to do, and the answer is the same for a spreadsheet and an app: record the exact printing, the quantity, the condition and what was paid, and tell you what it is worth now. The two tools differ in who does the typing and who updates the prices.
The spreadsheet: what it needs, and where it dies#
A collection spreadsheet that will still be useful in two years has more columns than the first draft. The minimum, one row per printing you own:
| Column | Why it is there |
|---|---|
| Game | So the sheet can hold more than one |
| Set (name and code) | The set decides the printing; the code sorts it |
| Collector number | The key, with the set: 4/102 names one card |
| Name | For reading, not for matching |
| Finish | Holo, reverse, plain: each is a different card and price |
| Language | A French card is not priced like an English one |
| Quantity | Playsets and duplicates |
| Condition | Near Mint by default; write the exception |
| Price paid and date | The only way to ever know your profit |
| Current value, source, date | The column that goes stale the day after you fill it |
The last row of the table is where the spreadsheet dies. Values change nightly on the marketplaces; a value typed in is wrong within weeks, and refreshing hundreds of them by hand is a job nobody does twice. Some collectors wire a sheet to a price API, which works until the API changes and is beyond most. The second death is the typing: identifying and entering the printing of a card takes a minute, which is fine for a hundred cards and unbearable for a thousand. That is roughly where spreadsheets get abandoned, with a "to enter" pile next to them.
The app: what it fixes, and what it costs#
An app with a scanner removes the two deaths at once. The camera reads the printing in about a second, so entering a thousand cards is an evening rather than a month, and the prices refresh themselves from the marketplaces, so the total is current without work. Set completion, search across your own cards and a value graph come along for free, because the app knows every printing and every price.
The cost is dependence. Your collection is in someone else's data model, valued by their sources, on their servers if they sync it, and gone if the company is. Three requirements protect you: a CSV export in the free tier that includes the printing details and what you paid; prices that name their source and date, so you can check them against the marketplace; and a collection that lives on your phone first, with a local backup you can keep.
Side by side#
| Need | Spreadsheet | Scanner app |
|---|---|---|
| Entering a card | About a minute of lookup and typing | About a second, from the camera |
| Naming the exact printing | Only as well as you looked it up | Read from the card; candidates when close |
| Current value | Stale from the day you typed it | Refreshed from the marketplaces, dated |
| Profit against what you paid | A column and a formula | Built in, if the app records purchase price |
| Set completion | A second sheet you maintain by hand | Drawn from the catalogue |
| Owning your data | Total: the file is yours | Only if it exports; check before you start |
| Cost | Free | A free tier, plus a subscription for the extras |
| Works in ten years | Yes, whatever happens | As long as the app exists, or as long as you exported |
The setup that gives you both#
Use the app as the working tracker: scan cards as they arrive, let it value them, use its set completion and search. Once a month, export the CSV and keep it with your other files. The export is your spreadsheet, kept up to date by the app rather than by you, and it survives the app. If you ever change apps, the CSV is what you import into the next one. If you ever sell the collection, the dated export with sources is the document a buyer or an insurer will believe.
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ta collection.
A tracker that fills itself in and exports the spreadsheet you would otherwise be typing.
- Scan a card and it is named, priced and counted; scan a binder page in Binder mode and review the list before it is added.
- CSV export of everything you own, with the printing details, in the free tier.
- Search your own cards by name, set, finish or amount; set completion with your own rules for holos and reverses.
Téléchargement gratuit · iPhone · Android
- Dragon Solaire311 €
- Sentinelle des Marées101 €
- Chant du Prisme2 543 €
- Cœur de Ronce18 €
- Éclat Vif64 €
- Garde de Cendre9 €
If you keep the spreadsheet anyway#
- One row per printing, never per card name. The printing is what has a price.
- Set code and collector number as the key. Names are for humans and are not unique.
- A date on every value, in the cell next to it. An undated value is a rumour.
- Freeze the header, sort by set and number, and keep the "to enter" pile under one box.
- Back the file up somewhere other than the laptop it lives on. It is the one object in the hobby that cannot be re-bought.
Questions fréquentes
What is the best way to keep track of a Pokémon card collection?
An app with a scanner for the day-to-day, and a monthly CSV export from it as your permanent record. The app removes the typing and keeps prices current; the export keeps the collection yours whatever happens to the app.
Is there a free Pokémon card collection tracker?
A spreadsheet is free and works for a few hundred cards. Most scanner apps have a free tier; check that it includes the collection and an export rather than a trial. Zukan's free tier includes the collection, set completion and CSV export with twenty-five scans per account and any card added by search without limit, permanently.
What columns should a card collection spreadsheet have?
Game, set name and code, collector number, card name, finish, language, quantity, condition, price paid with its date, and current value with its source and date. One row per printing you own.
Can I export my collection from a scanner app?
From some. It is the first thing to check before entering a single card: the export should be in the free tier and include the printing details, not only the names. Without it the collection belongs to the app.
