Whenever I post charts and tracks, I get asked what I use and how I do it. Here's a brief description.

FileMaker Pro
I use FileMaker Pro professionally for clients, so I decided to do one for myself, a database for inventory with three basic entry screens. There are still some warts in the database, so there may be some stuff in this example that doesn't reconcile or is flat out wrong.

1. A list with one record for each tracked firearm by Manufacturer, Model, Variation.


2. Pricing data entry and summary page for each firearm record.


3. Bluebook Pricing from my online subscription to BBGV. Data is parsed to appropriate data fields for later processing as well as for display in other database locations.


Excel Worksheet
FileMaker Pro will export selected data, create and open an Excel Worksheet. I export two fields, the recorded Price and the effective date of the price. The date field is modified so the date value is always the first of whatever month it was posted. This allows Excel to consolidate prices by month in a Pivot Table.

I have a second Worksheet with the monthly Consumer Price Index cut and pasted from the Historical Consumer Price Index website. I set the date format on this sheet to the same format as on the exported prices: first of the month.

The firearm Worksheet looks like this:


When the chart is finished, I copy it and save it as a JPG file, upload to Photobucket, and include the image code in my post.

Once you have the base CPI Worksheet it takes about twenty minutes to generate the Firearm Worksheet and chart. If you don't know Excel, it will take longer until you become accustomed to the vagaries and anomalies Bill Gates thinks we should have to deal with in the program.

Some of my price trend information as well as the price data themselves for some firearms have been used as sources in The Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson, 3rd Ed and in the Bluebook of Gun Values.

Thanks for your interest. I hope this helps

Cool, thanks. I was one of the ones asking. So, if you really want the gun, can you still justify it? LOL

With my little Excel spreadsheet, I feel so... inadequate.

Seriously though - great database!

And as a former database designer in Access, I really can appreciate what you've done.

Thanks, Barb.

I have used Access and its predecessors, Foxbase/Foxpro, but stayed with FileMaker. I've used FileMaker since its version one. It's easier to use and now, since Version 7, quite robust.

bubbajoe45, justification? What justification? I don' need no steenkin' justification. On the other hand, the appreciation of most quality firearms makes it hard to lose much if you keep them for a few years and some gain value better than bank interest.

Wow.... $285 for a 3" 547!

__________________
"I also cook."

I about fell over. I had just bought a 4-inch Square Butt a few weeks earlier. I had been looking for the 3-inch Round Butt. I walked into an out-of-state gunshop I hadn't been to in years. I spotted it in the case at about fifty feet. Bought it on the spot. Free shipping to my FFL. The $285 was the Bluebook Price at the time for either model 547 at 100%. They were selling for $400-$500 everywhere I was looking.

Here it is with knuckle saving Hogue Bantams on it. (I had the original grips saved.)