This post is in no way shape or form meant to discourage you from your project, just some food for thought on the realities that a project like this presents.
MTH has just passed their third decade in business, Lionel is in its 120th year. You add in K Line, Williams, anything else that has come before and the number of SKU's is in the 150,000+ mark. Not only that, but the issue becomes continually updating the information that is in the program. This is what has killed programs that have come before in the last twenty years. Once the size of the market becomes apparent, the financial side of this is not very large. In addition, the technological curve that this hobby runs on seems to be about 15-20 years behind the rest of the market. In order for this to grab ANY kind of meaningful foothold you need something that a very technologically challenged person can figure out and that can also output the data in a somewhat future proof format. That's why you've seen many hobbyist move to excel. It's somewhat simple and future proof. Plus they're not counting on the company to update the SKU's in the program every time.
I've thought this idea over many times over the past decade. In my personal opinion what would be the best solution is an app that can read the barcode on the manufactures box (Sadly this eliminates a large part of the market), cross references the master database (would need to be maintained), allows the user to check box a few items such as original box, damage, and assign a grade. Once all of that is done, the app needs to compile this data and output it in a widely used format (PDF, Word, Excel, etc) to future proof it. Oh and then lets make it savable and let people add to it whenever they want.
I've come to the conclusion that the only real reason most people need to make an inventory is to provide for insurance purposes. I don't think anyone really wants to know what they have spent or what it's "worth". Let's not even get into the dynamic pricing that would need to be built into this for it to provide a fair appraisal value. You would almost have to plug in the MSRP and then create a depreciation formula that somewhat follows the real world curve. I've tried this a few times and coming up with a curve that anyone can actually agree on is nearly impossible. The reality is it tends to land between an 8%-14% per year depreciation in the real world. Try explaining that to most collectors and you'll see them about have a stroke.
This would need to be as "KISS" (Keep it simple stupid) as possible. I respect and encourage what you are trying to do, it's just a massive project without much actual upside or benefit. People hate keeping an inventory because imputing the data is such a hassle. Eliminating that problem is really really difficult because of the amount of time and technological leaps the hobby has seen in 120+ years.
Greg, I hope you don't see this as raining on your parade. I applaud the desire to want to make this happen. If you choose to go down this road, just beware of the can of worms your opening.
All the best,
Derek
