Using Excel spreadsheets

Since the Fall of 2014, the Standard Catalog of World Coins data has been housed in a Librios database system. The old NumisMaster website, though still available, has not been updated or supported since Fall of 2014. NumisMaster remains on the web as a free source of descriptive data, but the prices are stagnant and no new listings would have appeared after the conversion to Librios. The most current data, in the intervening years, has been available only through our printed references.

In the Librios database, special Excel spreadsheets have been created to allow you to enter price changes electronically. These Excel spreadsheets have hard coding, enabling them to be imported and find their way directly to the proper fields. Both on your end, in generating the changes, and on our end, in reviewing, augmenting and entering the data, time has been saved and accuracy has increased through this process. The days of paper printouts and handwritten notes are behind us, and we can look towards a powerful future of much more responsive data improvements.

On these detail Excel sheets, we ask that you only make changes to existing price fields. If a price field is blank, and you now have information allowing for a value, please do assign that new value. If you wish to upgrade a value in a given grade, please observe and adapt the adjoining fields to maintain a cohesive range of values between the grades. Note also that several new grades have been established for the database, which will begin to appear in various print and digital products, where appropriate, over time. We now have fields available for AU50, MS64, MS65, MS66, PRF60, PRF63, PRF65, PRF67 and PRF69. In addition, all grades are now represented in traditional numeric grading forms, so Unc is now MS60, XF is now XF40, and so on.

The Excel files should follow in the same sorting order as our printed pages, so you should be able to match your Excel file and PDF page files or book pages quite closely. Open your Excel file using Excel software, standard on most computers, and set your typed changes to appear in red, so that we can see them for review. Do not attempt to alter fields other than the graded price fields. Most of the other fields you can see in the Excel file are more complex and are needed for sorting and ordering the types. If you have newfound dates, types, or varieties to add, please send us the information separately, referencing country and KM number, or simply print the appropriate PDF page from your CD and handwrite your new information.

If you are very comfortable with our Excel sheets, you can try inserting new detail lines in specific places, leaving the iosid field blank. If you intend to add many new dates, please let me know and I can send you a special sheet for this purpose, which will allow for quick, safe importing of your new information. Please do not copy and paste rows of data, as the hard coding iosid number will simply overlay your new data on some correct data, making for errors in the database.

If you notice any descriptive items, such as obverse or reverse descriptions, that need improvement on the PDF or book pages, print or copy the page, write the correction, and mail it in or email us the required correction, referencing country and KM number. If you have many descriptive corrections to make, email me and I can send you a special Excel sheet of descriptive data fields for any country, which will allow for similar changes to be made as described above, in red, ready to review and import on receipt. On these descriptive Excel sheets, the same cautions apply; i.e., do not copy and paste rows; just insert and leave the iosid field blank for a new listing.

Most who have been using this method of submitting updates have been very happy with the power it affords, the speed with which changes can be made, and the accuracy that is achieved. I hope you will find this to be the case also.

Best,

Tom Michael

F + W Media – Krause Publications

700 East State Street

Iola WI 54990

Phone: 715.445.4612 ext. 13280

Email: Tom.Michael@fwmedia.com