QR Codes

[Fulvio]

For some time now, I've been thinking about storage, labelling, documentation, and all that jazz. I've tried a number of things, which worked with various amounts of (but hardly resounding) success. Thanks to my atrocious handwriting, most of my coins remain unlabelled, which is a bit of a hassle when you want to find anything.



The lightly pencilled markings below are the best I've ever done with anything that wasn't bought. But as you can see, I may have a final solution. The labels are mockups, sticky-taped on, but will eventually be printed on labels.



The following link contains the images, QR codes, and a quickie Excel spreadsheet to show one way to produce labels.

http://goo.gl/TDZyM

Getting the codes is pretty easy, but you need to keep a few things in mind...

You want the code to fit on a 2x2. That means you need to print it so each dot is a single pixel. As the length of the data increases, so does the size of the code block (you can cram 4,000 characters into a QR code). 25x25 is the smallest you can get, and when I generated codes for the real URLs for those pics, they came in at around 40x40, which simply didn't fit. So you must use a shortener.

There are lots of ways to generate QR codes. http://zxing.appspot.com/generator is the lowest-overhead one, http://www.qrstuff.com/ probably the most complete. I even drew a few by hand (not too hard once you know how they're built). But in the end, goo.gl provides a total solution.

See, when you sign in to http://goo.gl/ you get a history of everything you've shortened. If you click on the Details link, there's a QR code right there for the taking. Like this: http://goo.gl/#analytics/goo.gl/X5Bfw/all_time

And you get analytics for the link as well. So you can see when a link was clicked, and useful stuff like referrers, location, OS and browser. All that juicy stuff every website knows about you, but never bothered to tell you.

All you need to do is copy the image, paste it into Excel, shrink to fit, add a human readable description, print and attach. Now you can scan the code and (as long as you have network access) pull up a pic, or if you prefer, a page describing the coin. You could even link to a forum post, as long as you were logged in when you scanned the code. Oh, and as a bonus, if you're tidy with your files, you have a permanent copy of what coins are on a given page. Instant inventory system, and handy when the insurance company asks. You could even print full sheets on plain paper to use as catalogues or interleaves in your album.

Useful, huh? Now comes the hard part... finding suitable labels that won't break the bank. :dodgy:

[Oz 50c Man]

Very innovative!  I use QR codes in my work and never thought about them this way.  Thanks for sharing.

[Fulvio]

After much procrastination, I found a roll of 2" LDPE tubing which dad was using to store 35mm negatives. Perfect size for an album!

So here's my first experiment, with a coin and a label. Its still early days, and there are some problems to iron out... the QR code doesn't scan through the plastic, so will need to be bigger. The image is too large, and the overall label size is about 10mm too tall. But its a start I guess.

Lacking the tubing material, the exact same thing could be made out of coin bags, as previously described. I might do one that way next to illustrate the point.

The page that QR code, http://goo.gl/cOSGi points to is also a work in progress. The plan is to have such a page for each and every coin, along with suitable pics and other info. Sounds like a lot of work, and of course it is, so shortcuts MAY be taken... we'll see. :angel:

[Robster]

Innovative.!

[ausjack]

lookin good so when do you want to do mine

[Unicorn]

Cool Fulvio!

I got some of these back in April to help keep some of my bulk coins away from each other. They fit up to 50c quite well.

(I'm on a bit of a budget obviously).

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310696205099

[Fulvio]

(I'm on a bit of a budget obviously).

I bought a few of those once, and found they were too small for albums. Besides, if you're really on a budget, hit the bank for a box of bags (free), and Bunnings for some Acetone (I just bought 4l for $38 today). Then seal them like I posted elsewhere.

Obviously more work, but definitely cheaper, eh?

[Pedro]

4 litres :shok:

Are you intending to clean up all circulating coins in Australia Fulvio?

Pedro

[Fulvio]

Are you intending to clean up all circulating coins in Australia Fulvio?

Never hurts to stock up. The chemists all wanted $10-12 for 100ml, so I figure $38 is a nice discount from $400-480.

[Fulvio]

Still a work in progress, but the Excel spreadsheet for producing those labels is coming along slowly.



Much harder is bagging the little buggers. The problem I'm trying to deal with is stopping the coin from rotating. Given the way the heat sealer works, I'm not having much joy, and the latest round of tests looks horrible.

Of course the proper way to go would be ultrasonic welding, with appropriate dies for each coin. Awesome for a commercial operation, out of the question for a hobbyist though.

So I'm thinking along the lines of a heated ring slightly larger than a coin. Either a loop of nichrome wire http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=WW4040 or something a bit lower tech like a washer, ceramic disk (to protect the plastic over the coin), and an iron. Problem would be heat control of course.

Hmm.. how much are ultrasonics nowadays?

[trout]

I think I will stick to my 2x2's and my scribble on them.
I do update my excel pages every now and then , But that's as far as I am willing to go with the "Paperwork" part of collecting :ok:

[Fulvio]

Still a work in progress, but the Excel spreadsheet for producing those labels is coming along slowly.

Slight change of tack. With the sudden upsurge in identical coins, I'm now bagging and tagging them in bulk.

I knocked up a quickie database in FileMaker Pro, into which I can enter stuff like date, denomination, condition, url and comments, and then it spits out labels like this:



Labels are laserprinted on plain A4, and if I can track down guaranteed chlorine-free coloured papers, will be colour-coded by type as well. The label is cut out, rolled around the coins in the bottom of an acetoned ziplock bank bag (fits a stack of 32 $2 coins snugly), and heat-sealed. The QR/URL currently points to a boring generic page, but is basically a placeholder for when I get more adventurous.

This should guarantee these purty coins stay that way for a while, eh?

There are PC versions of FileMaker floating around out there, and if anyone has it and wants this template or database to play with, you're welcome to it.

[Fulvio]

OK, so here's the latest bit of experimentation...

219g says 33 coins in the bag. I miscounted. Think I'll add a field to display weight and calculated count, since the bags do vary slightly in size between batches. Maybe value too, and running tallies for cover sheets to go in/on whatever container I put these rolls in. The roll on the bottom right was the Mark I, and the QR code is too big to scan on a curved surface. The weight of the coins and the grade of LDPE mean that the bags separate without cutting, and both halves are sealed. So the top half makes a handy ziplock, as you can see on the left and under the roll on the right.



Today's haul from the dealer, as previously described.



The cut in the 10¢ was intended to prove the coin was solid gold. Genius never heard of scales obviously. Still, its a nice bit of plating. Wonder what the material is?



I've been stuffing bits of offcuts from the Armaguard bags into a sack, to send off to recycling. But they build up a static charge and fly all over the room if you let them. So... grab an iron and some baking paper, and weld them all together in a block. Works well.



And while the iron's hot, lets see what it does to LDPE shopping bags. The small sheet is one bag folded a couple of times, the bigger deformed sheet is two bags not folded. Now if only I had a use for plastic sheets....

[Australian coin]

be careful with the zip lock bags, I had $1 coins in normal ones and they did some weird tarnishing

[ausjack]

I'm with trout on this one, even tho i don't write on mine at all..too much trouble and stuffin around for me sorry and like AC said, be careful as it can quickly stuff up your coins