Collectibles

• Contributors: akirk
• Tags: collection, inventory, coins, stamps, wp-app
• Requires at least: 6.0
• Requires PHP: 7.4
• Tested up to: 7.1
• Stable tag: 1.0.0
• License: GPL-2.0-or-later
• License URI: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

Catalog what you collect — coins, stamps, banknotes, cards, records, books — each kind with its own fields, grading scale and totals.

Description

Collectibles is a catalog for the things you keep in a drawer: coins, stamps, banknotes, trading cards, records, books, comics, watches, or whatever else. Built on WpApp, so it runs as its own app at /collectibles/ instead of inside wp-admin.

Collections of a kind

Every collection has a kind, and the kind decides which fields its items get. A coin asks for denomination, mint, mint mark, composition, weight and diameter; a stamp asks for perforation, watermark, gum and cancellation; a record asks for artist, label, format, speed and sleeve condition. Seven kinds ship, including a generic one for everything else.

The right grading scale per kind

Coins grade Mint State to Poor, stamps Superb to Defective, cards Gem Mint 10 down to 1, records the Goldmine M/NM/VG+ scale, books As New to Poor.

Fields every item shares

Status, condition, quantity, year, origin, catalog number, where it is stored, when and from whom it was acquired, what it cost and what it is worth.

More than one of the same thing

An item can hold several lots. A stack of the same note is not one homogeneous thing — one copy can be uncirculated and two well used, bought at different times for different money — so condition, piece count, price paid and estimated value are recorded per lot, while what the piece is and where it comes from stay on the item.

Wishlists

An item's status can be on the wishlist, ordered, duplicate, for sale or sold. Only what you actually hold counts towards the totals.

Photos

Several per item, with a named front and back, stored as ordinary WordPress attachments.

Tags and search

Tags work across every collection, and a search looks at titles, notes, tags and every recorded field value at once.

Totals

Per collection and across all of them: entries, pieces held, what you paid, what it is worth. Prices are recorded in the collection's currency, so totals never mix currencies.

Where things come from

Each item records an origin — an ISO country or one of the historic issuers such as a defunct empire — and an Origins page shades a world map with the territories your collection covers.

Catalog lookups

Coins and banknotes can be filled in from the Numista catalogue using API credentials you register for your own Numista account and enter under Settings. Answers are cached and metered against a monthly budget, and no lookup happens without credentials.

CSV export

One file per collection, for an insurance list or a spreadsheet.

Abilities

Read-only lookups (collectibles/list-collections, collectibles/search-items, collectibles/get-item) are exposed through the Abilities API, so an assistant can answer "do I already have this one?".

Storage

No custom tables. A collection is a coll_collection post, an item is a coll_item post parented to it, field values are post meta, tags are the coll_tag taxonomy, and photos are attachments parented to the item. Deleting a collection deletes its items and their photos.

Development of this plugin happens on GitHub. Pull requests welcome.

Installation

1. Upload the collectibles directory to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
2. Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress
3. Visit /collectibles/ on your site

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this plugin create custom tables?

No. A collection is a post, an item is a post parented to it, field values are post meta, tags are a taxonomy and photos are ordinary attachments. Delete the plugin and your database is as slim as before.

Who can see my collection?

The app requires a login and the edit_posts capability, and collections and items belong to their author.

Can I add a kind of collectible that is not shipped?

Yes. Everything the app knows about a kind lives in one array entry in src/class-schema.php: a label, an icon, its extra fields and its condition scale. Add an entry and the forms, detail views, CSV export and meta registration follow along — no template changes needed.

Do I need a Numista account?

Only if you want catalog lookups for coins and banknotes. Everything else works without one. Register a client on your own Numista account and enter the client name, client id and API key under Settings.

Can I get my data back out?

Every collection has a CSV export, with one row per lot.

Screenshots

1. Starting out: the kinds of thing the app knows how to collect, each bringing the fields it will ask for.
2. A collection of banknotes, with the entries it holds, the pieces counted, and the search, status, tag and order filters above them.

Changelog

1.0.0

• Initial release.