How do you organize your collection?

[MrBones]

Hello all,

I am running into a problem with organising my finds. Should I group them based on type, or specific location found? What should I include on their labels (I don't want to write on the fossils, so I place them on top of a piece of paper that states name, location, age ect.) Any additional information would also be helpful.

Thanks in advance.

[FossilsAnonymous]

Whatever is most comfortable; or easier for you to reference to. 

 

For me, I group them with the type of fossil they are (shark teeth) then by location (Calvert) and finally species (Mako). So Calvert makos will be next to each other and grouped, but near to my other makos in a drawer with shark teeth.

[ziggycardon]

I must admit I usually organise my collection in 3 ways. 

The most common usually is by location, I have separate displays with all my White River Formation fossils, Hell Creek Fossils, Kem Kem Beds Fossil, Khouribga Fossils, Fossils from the Maastrichtian type location, Florida Ice-age fossils, Eurasian Ice-age fossils, and so on... 

 

If I don't have enough fossils from a location to organise by, I usually display them by age. I have for instance a display with my Triassic fossils, one for my Permian fossils and even wider a display with my various Mesozoïc fossils, Paleozoïc fossils and Cenozoïc fossils.

 

And there are a few cases where I just organise by type like I do with shark teeth and ammonites which I usually display all together, without any regard for their locality or age.

 

But in the end, you pick what you feel most comfortable with  

[MrBones]

8 minutes ago, ziggycardon said:

I must admit I usually organise my collection in 3 ways. 

The most common usually is by location, I have separate displays with all my White River Formation fossils, Hell Creek Fossils, Kem Kem Beds Fossil, Khouribga Fossils, Fossils from the Maastrichtian type location, Florida Ice-age fossils, Eurasian Ice-age fossils, and so on... 

 

If I don't have enough fossils from a location to organise by, I usually display them by age. I have for instance a display with my Triassic fossils, one for my Permian fossils and even wider a display with my various Mesozoïc fossils, Paleozoïc fossils and Cenozoïc fossils.

 

And there are a few cases where I just organise by type like I do with shark teeth and ammonites which I usually display all together, without any regard for their locality or age.

 

But in the end, you pick what you feel most comfortable with  

Great variety! We often travel, and I find little things all over the place. I will think about which one is more convenient.

[grandpa]

"How do you organize your collection?"

 

I organize by "natural order".  That is: the heavier boxes and buckets go on bottom, the lighter ones on top.  The older aquisitions are piled in the back of the garage, the newer ones progress toward the front.  When something topples over, it sometimes starts an avalanche that introduces a bit of "entropy" into the "natural order".  It's a scientifically derived organization system. 

 

 

[Peat Burns]

34 minutes ago, grandpa said:

"How do you organize your collection?"

 

I organize by "natural order".  That is: the heavier boxes and buckets go on bottom, the lighter ones on top.  The older aquisitions are piled in the back of the garage, the newer ones progress toward the front.  When something topples over, it sometimes starts an avalanche that introduces a bit of "entropy" into the "natural order".  It's a scientifically derived organization system. 

 

 

 

All things transform to entropy without energy input.  Sounds like you need some energy input to restore enthalpy 

[FF7_Yuffie]

Mine are all crammed on a shelf at my dads in England.

 

When travel restrictions are lifted, I hope to bring them back over to Taiwan with me and display them properly.

 

I will either probably display by era and area. Cretaceous UK, Jurassic US, Cretaceous Morocco etc. 

 

Only drawback with that approach ... my Niger display  will consist of one solitary tooth and my France display is even more barren with a tiny pyroraptor eggshell lol

[TOM BUCKLEY]

16 hours ago, grandpa said:

I organize by "natural order".  That is: the heavier boxes and buckets go on bottom, the lighter ones on top.  The older aquisitions are piled in the back of the garage, the newer ones progress toward the front.  When something topples over, it sometimes starts an avalanche that introduces a bit of "entropy" into the "natural order".  It's a scientifically derived organization system. 

 

 

Disorderly organized. I love it. 

 

Tom

[aplomado]

ziggycardon:  

 

grandpa: 

[Monica]

@MrBones

 

Here are photos to show how I've chosen to organize my fossils...

As you can see, I've chosen to organize my fossils by age rather than location.  I was originally going to have one cabinet for my North American fossils and the other cabinet for my "rest of the world" fossils, but it didn't seem balanced because while I have both large and small North American fossils, I have very few large fossils from elsewhere (due to shipping costs from overseas).  I'm pretty happy with how my display has turned out 

 

Re: labels - I bought these tent/place cards and wrote on each as much information for each fossil as I had available to me.  I purchased these tent/place cards online from a site that starts with "A" 

[FossilDAWG]

3 hours ago, FF7_Yuffie said:

Mine are all crammed on a shelf at my dads in England.

 

When travel restrictions are lifted, I hope to bring them back over to Taiwan with me and display them properly.

Just be sure you can take them with you should you ever leave Taiwan. I don't know anything specific about the law in Taiwan, but some countries have strict export laws and I can see where someone might be able to bring their collection in (because no-one is checking what you bring in) but then have trouble later when they want to leave.

 

Don

[Bobby Rico]

I am confused and so is my collection. Most the time I do try and keep my shelves and collector’s drawers as mostly ammonites together, mammal material, shark teeth, plant material, coral  and so on. But I also have a collection of Mazon Creek, isle of Sheppey or Hell Creek that I keep together. I think I go by what looks most interesting in the space I have available. The most important thing is to keep track of the specimen’s info/labelling. My is numbered or has a label underneath..

[thelivingdead531]

Mine is in an organized disarray. I mostly don’t sort it into specific categories, but more of a general category. This cabinet is sorted with vertebrates on the top shelf and invertebrates/trace fossils on the bottom shelf. I basically just place things where it’s aesthetically pleasing.

 

This cabinet is mostly for my fossil fish and other antiques or artifacts. The top shelf is my GRF fish. The middle shelf houses my fish from all over the world and my antiques. The bottom shelf has my larger fossils that couldn’t be displayed in the other cabinet and a couple of new fish from around the world.

 

Whatever route you decide to take, we hope to see it in the future! You can’t go wrong with a display as long as it has fossils!

 

Edit: it didn’t save my photos the first time, so the first referenced cabinet is the first photo. The second cabinet is the second photo. Sorry if there is any confusion.

[FF7_Yuffie]

29 minutes ago, FossilDAWG said:

Just be sure you can take them with you should you ever leave Taiwan. I don't know anything specific about the law in Taiwan, but some countries have strict export laws and I can see where someone might be able to bring their collection in (because no-one is checking what you bring in) but then have trouble later when they want to leave.

 

Don

 

Thats something I never considered. I'll have to check that out.

 

Thanks

[TOM BUCKLEY]

I don't know if this will be of much help but this is the way I do it. I have over thousand specimens cataloged and I really don't see myself changing my system. I number all my specimens with a code for the collecting site and a number for the specimen. For example… If a specimen is the sixth collected at Penn Dixie quarry, it is numbered PD6. If the specimen was the 10th one purchased from China, the number would be CH10 .
I put the number on the specimen itself and catalog it into Trilobase, my computer software.
How the specimens are stored, however, is a different story. I store them based upon the type fossil that they are. Gastropods, trilobites, cephalopods, etc. This makes it a lot easier to locate a specimen. Hope this helps and please feel free to ask me to elaborate.

Tom

[MrBones]

9 minutes ago, TOM BUCKLEY said:

I don't know if this will be of much help but this is the way I do it. I have over thousand specimens cataloged and I really don't see myself changing my system. I number all my specimens with a code for the collecting site and a number for the specimen. For example… If a specimen is the sixth collected at Penn Dixie quarry, it is numbered PD6. If the specimen was the 10th one purchased from China, the number would be CH10 .
I put the number on the specimen itself and catalog it into Trilobase, my computer software.
How the specimens are stored, however, is a different story. I store them based upon the type fossil that they are. Gastropods, trilobites, cephalopods, etc. This makes it a lot easier to locate a specimen. Hope this helps and please feel free to ask me to elaborate.

Tom

Thanks, yes cataloguing sounds helpful, can you add photos of the fossils in a catalogue? I head you can do something similar to it with Microsoft Excel. I have a large collection, fossils from all over the world, but most from only two locations.

[TOM BUCKLEY]

7 minutes ago, MrBones said:

Thanks, yes cataloguing sounds helpful, can you add photos of the fossils in a catalogue? I head you can do something similar to it with Microsoft Excel. I have a large collection, fossils from all over the world, but most from only two locations.

 

Here is one specimen which I entered in Trilobase.

 

Tom

[MrBones]

1 minute ago, TOM BUCKLEY said:

 

Here is one specimen which I entered in Trilobase.

 

Tom

That's very cool! I will definitely look into that.

[Malcolmt]

Everybody is much more organized than me!!!!!!!!

 

[MrBones]

25 minutes ago, Malcolmt said:

Everybody is much more organized than me!!!!!!!!

 

That could keep me busy for months

[TOM BUCKLEY]

1 hour ago, Malcolmt said:

Everybody is much more organized than me!!!!!!!!

 

 

Not really, Malcolm. The rest of my life is in chaos!

 

Your friend from Ridgemount,

Tom

[Plax]

I collect locality assemblages so that is the way the collection is organized. Location, including formation, is also the minimum information required of a fossil. It's easy to identify something later or put a label on it if you know exactly where it's from. I do have a separate display case for echinoids and drawers for crabs. Nothing as nice as ya'll have though!

[Pixpaleosky]

4 hours ago, Monica said:

 

 

Here are photos to show how I've chosen to organize my fossils...

 

As you can see, I've chosen to organize my fossils by age rather than location.  I was originally going to have one cabinet for my North American fossils and the other cabinet for my "rest of the world" fossils, but it didn't seem balanced because while I have both large and small North American fossils, I have very few large fossils from elsewhere (due to shipping costs from overseas).  I'm pretty happy with how my display has turned out 

 

Re: labels - I bought these tent/place cards and wrote on each as much information for each fossil as I had available to me.  I purchased these tent/place cards online from a site that starts with "A" 

 

This is a splendid display Monica !

 

For my collection, each fossil has a label, plus a reference written on it when possible: name of the collection + a number refering to either a fossil type like "fishes from the world" either a location "oligocene from X location" plus the fossil number.

 

Exemple for a fossil from an outcrop i collect is: CP.2.7 meaning collection pixpaleosky, 2=this particular outcrop, 7=fossil number 7

 

Then in an excel file this reference corresponds to a name, location and age, like on the label.