777 Colnect Contributors - Creating Colnect Magic

A new year, a new milestone reached, a new satisfying number to celebrate. Colnect has passed 777 contributors.

The number 7 has always represented some sense of wonder, of far reaching ventures, of worldwide phenomena, the seven seas, the seventh heaven, the seven wonders of the world, the seven colors of the rainbow. Associated widely in cultures throughout history with special occurrences, miracles and power, we on Colnect certainly hope this number bodes well for this budding year and its potential to unite and innovate.

A year after our previous milestone of 666 contributors on Colnect, more than 111 new contributors have joined to empower, improve and enhance Colnect.

Each of these sevens, seven hundred, seventy and seven, is comprised of individual collectors on Colnect that decided to give some of themselves, some of their time and drive, to the Colnect catalogs. The catalogs you see today on Colnect are purely the result of the combined contribution and dedication of these collectors.

On the website design front, Colnect is doing its best to provide new tools and improved features for contributors, editors and coordinators on Colnect. Those help make activity on Colnect easier, smoother and more effective.

Of the new features provided, there were many to enable and aid Colnect editors. A New Comments Counter allows for quicker and easier dealing with the collector comments. The Item Edit History has become available to all editors, the Editing Menu has been optimized and there were many other changes and fixes introduced.

The look of Colnect has been going through some improvements recently as well. As part of that the badges on the collector profile page, those that indicate the role of the collector as a contributor and the amount of the stars awarded to that collector, has been renewed and polished.

As always, we'd like to thank all the wonderful contributors, editors, translators and coordinators on Colnect. This ever-growing group of collectors joined by a common goal and passion has achieved much in the past year. It brought the Colnect catalogs another long stretch forward in making collectible information available to all collectors worldwide in the best way.

100 MILLION Items on Colnect Collectors Inventories

Yes, One Hundred Million items marked on collectors' inventories. As a community, it's wonderful to see how active everyone is in collecting and interacting. After all, this is what Colnect is made for, and it only goes to show that it is truly working.

What does this number mean? It's the accumulation of all items marked for swap on Colnect, all the items marked on the collections of Colnect's members, all the wish lists, all the custom lists. You can say it's the accumulation of all the collecting wealth, collecting hopes and aspirations of all the collectors on Colnect. This makes this inconceivable number even more impressive.

Colnect collectors have 40 million different physical items in their own collection. That's without including multiple quantities of the same item that a specific collector may have. So physically, there are lot more than only 40,000,000 items.

Additionally, there are now 8 million different physical items on collector swap lists. These are 8,000,000 opportunities for tens of thousands of collectors on Colnect. Even greater than that is the number of wish list items which is nearing an incredible 50 million, demonstrating once again that collectors will always have the ambition to find more and create better collections. Swaps are a major part of the Colnect community and social activity. In this day and age, it is an actual physical connection made between collectors on different points on the globe and it is the foundation of Colnect.

Looking at the numbers, you can find many more other curious statistics. For example, for every item on the catalog, how many collectors are marking it? Well, we can see that, on average, the Coins category is the leader in this case. An average of 85 collectors have marked a given item in their collection and an average of 178 have marked it on some list. This is great for Colnect because of another useful resource it has, the Item Score. The item score relies on data from the collectors themselves, The more marking, the more data, the more accurate the score.

We can see how much knowledge, connection and strength we can gain simply by marking the lists. So what else is there to say than - mark away! May the swaps roll on :)

Colnect Looking Good Everywhere - Responsive Design

Colnect is now dressed to impress on any device in any size. Until now, Colnect's design was nice but not very adaptable to the many variations of screen resolutions such as on mobile phones, tablets and full HD screens. Now we are happy to announce Colnect has developed a new design that will comfortably adjust to any way you'd like to view it.

Have you ever tried browsing Colnect on your mobile? How about your tablet? or even putting it up on an HD screen? Now is the time to try and see how the new Colnect pages react to your choices.

Colnect categories page - Full-HD view

Colnect categories page - MOBILE view

The new design is available to Colnect members with only one click, Click here to try the new design. If you're not logged in, the new design would be the default now.

We welcome you to try the new design and provide us with feedback before we make the change permanent. We have rewritten much of the code related to the site's design and we'll be making many more updates in the coming week to finish and polish what's missing.

What kind of things you will notice in the new design? Selected items of important information has been custom chosen to each screen, so you will always see what you need, no more, no less. List length, amount of rows and image size now all change according the size of screen or browser window. Play with the Colnect browser window size now and see Colnect shrink and grow to fit perfectly. We also needed to address some device specific issues, such as adjusting the Colnect menus to the mobiles touch screen so browsing is made quick and easy and allowing for spacious view on wide screen resolutions without unneeded scrolling or empty space.

If the new design is not working well for you, please report the problems you experience on the forum, along with a screen shot, the URL you visit and the browser you use, and we'll do our best to respond quickly.

Click here to switch back to the old design

Please note that our forum system doesn't support responsive design yet. We plan to upgrade it soon enough though. This means that when you view the forums on your mobile, you'll likely have to zoom in.

So go ahead and give this new design a spin :)

Get ready for the Colnect Free Premium Weekend!

This weekend all of Colnect's premium services will be freely available to all members. The promotion will begin on Thursday noon and end at Monday noon. Relevant timezone UTC+0.

We've noticed that some Colnect members with large collections didn't have the chance to try some of the important Premium Membership features such as Auto-Matching and Best Matches. During the first trial Free Premium Membership period, some collector did not have enough items in their collection to make use of these features. We want to give all members an opportunity to see how these services work for them, let us know what they think and have fun :)

We also hope to encourage more collectors to consider supporting Colnect either by purchasing a Premium Membership or being given one through becoming a catalog contributor on Colnect.

So get your lists ready and clear your weekend to do some massive collection managing this weekend!

Learn more about Premium Membership in this video -

Read more >

It's the 80th Anniversary of the Lego Name, and Colnect Celebrates!

With most of 2014 behind us, which included the release of the incredibly popular Lego themed film "The Lego movie", we can take a look back at the history of Lego. We'll find out that there are more amazing achievements that the company that created this beloved toy, icon and collector favorite has reached this year.

80 years ago, in 1934, Ole Kirk, the founder of a Danish wooden toys company, was contemplating how to name it. He already had 2 names in mind but he was not sure. Eventually he had decided on a name of his own invention - Lego, named after the Danish phrase "Leg godt" which means "Play Well". Little did he know that the name he chose will turn out to be not only a good choice but a prescient prediction of the company future. The word "Lego" in Latin means "I put together" or "I assemble".

"Emmet" minifigure from the 2014 Series: "The Lego Movie", from the Colnect catalog

Jumping forward 30 years to 1964, half a century ago, the Lego Company has launched its first Model Set. The model set has later become one of the most popular and widely recognized features of the Lego company. It is also the corner stone of the Colnect Lego Sets catalog, dedicated to showcasing all sets from the 1960's until this very day.

"Locomotive" Train set from 1966, from the Colnect catalog

The documentation of all Lego Sets in history is no simple feat. From Train sets to Minifigures, from "Homemaker" sets to "The Hobbit" movies themed models, there are so many wonderful details to capture, so much information to add. On a community catalog that is based on volunteers, such as Colnect, this means contributors. Enthusiastic collectors, each adding what ever pieces of information they have. The more help the catalog has, the better and more comprehensive the catalog is. The existence of the catalog enables Lego collectors to gain access to a worldwide community and advanced comfortable collection management tools.

"Horizon Express" train set from 2013, from the Colnect catalog

The catalog has been created and has gone a long way based on the initiative of its coordinator, Graeme Kilpatrick [nzexchange]. He has single-handedly added thousands of sets to what is now a beautiful catalog of sets old and new. It is a remarkable achievement. So now, what about more? :) Come join to make this catalog even greater and let us know your opinion.

"Falling Water" set from the Architecture series 2009, from the Colnect catalog

Have sets in your collection that you'd like to see on the Colnect catalog? Interested in helping develop the Lego Sets catalog? Learn more on the Lego Sets Contribution help page. Want to get even more involved? Would like to help lead the charge to develop this global Lego Sets catalog? Check this out and let us know.

"Electric Train" train set from 1968, from the Colnect catalog

Tea Bags Catalog Exceeds 60,006 Teabags on Colnect

We on Colnect are proud to announce that the charming Tea Bag Catalog on Colnect has now reached 60,006 Tea Bags! The catalog has progressed a lot over the years,  into a beautiful and well structured catalog, that now also works as a counterpart to its brother catalog, Tea Labels. With over a thousand tea bags added just in the last month, the catalog's growth rate, years after its creation, is impressive.

This achievement is made even more admirable when you consider it's all the result of the ever dedicated coordinator and founder of the category, Carine De Pauw [crookscarine]. The Teabag category has gotten help from great contributors, of course, but as the sole coordinator and editor of the category, Carine is the main grand orchestrator and executor of it all, maintaining 2 categories at once. Without her, no of this was possible.

Carine with a Colnect T-Shirt at a fai 

Carine is a serious collector of Stamps, Phonecards, Tea Bags, Tea Labels and Beer Coasters. She has been a Colnect member since 2005, when Colnect was still a website only catering to Phonecard collectors. Let's take a few moments to get to know her a little better.

- Carine, you are taking on both the Tea Bags and Tea Label categories on your own as the sole coordinator and editor for both categories. How are you managing that?

This works because I use all my free time to work on both catalogs. I try to add new teabags every day. This is only possible thanks to my contributors who are sending scans. Some of them also send me new teabags, so I can enlarge my own collection, because I don’t have much time to swap. Sometimes I get comments regarding mistakes in the catalog which help me edit the catalog. Therefore I would like to thank all my contributors.

The first one. when I’ve started in 2009, was Els Van Gastel [leeuwin] from the Netherlands. In October 2011 I saw beautiful teabags from Brooke Bond on Facebook from Marjoke. I’ve asked her if I could get the scans for Colnect. She agreed and from then on I’ve gotten a lot of new scans from her for the catalog.

Here you can see a picture of Marjoke and Emilienne, another member on Colnect. It is at an international fair at Rijkevorsel in November 2012, where I advertised Colnect.

Left to right: Emilienne, Carine and Marjoke, collector fair at Rijkevorsel, November 2012

Special thanks to all my contributors, without whom I would never have had 60006 bags in the catalog:
From the Netherlands - Els Van Gastel [leeuwin], Marjoke Rozier [marjatea], Veerle Daams [dragons], Jan De Graaf [Saturn] ,Cees Verbaan [Cornelis], Irene Ramp [teagirl], Christel Aerts [CIEV2004], Hillie Janssen-Kiers [hillie1956]
From Belgium: Geert Vinck [GeertVinck], Nancy Vergauwen [bambi]
From Denmark - Flemming Axelsen [axpro], Inge Nielsen [vinkel]
From Finland: Ljuba Brown [Zamppa]
From Germany: Jacklin
From Latvia: Ivan Dimitrov [ventspils]
From Spain: Manuel Faja I Riera [ttags]
From Indonesia: Dhanya Rahardjo [dhanya]

- What do you think of how the TB catalog and Colnect have changed over the years?
Since the start of the catalog there are some interesting changes. I think the variants are very useful, as well as the link to the corresponding Tea Labels.

In the future I would like to add many new teabags and also spend more time on the tea label catalog which I have started in January 2013.

- What kind of reaction do you get from Tea Bag collectors regarding the catalog?
Some collectors are very grateful and they say “You’re doing a great job”.

- Do you have a favorite teabag?
My favorite teabag is not just a teabag, it’s a puzzle from an English tea shop with 25 small tea boxes. It’s a present from my daughter.

Carine's favourite item on her the Tea Bag collection

We're delighted to have Carine on board the Colnect ship and happy to celebrate with her a double occasion, her recent birthday and her great accomplished creation, the Tea Bags catalog on Colnect. Many Tea Bag collectors around the world now benefit from her generosity with her time and enthusiasm to the collecting of Tea Bags.

Google Indexed More Than 245 MILLION Colnect Pages

The world's most popular search engine has now indexed over 245 Million Colnect pages! That is a phenomenal amount. That is almost 10x times more pages presented than in Colnect's previous milestone. Colnect is ever rising and the results are definitely showing worldwide :)

What does it mean? It means that our catalogs are growing and so there's much more information that is made available to everyone around the world. It means Colnect is flourishing and that Google accepts its original content as something valid and useful.

Globe "Now Your World is One" United States Phonecard, newly added on Colnect

Chinese Puzzle Phonecard, newly added on Colnect

To give you readers a better idea of how far the Colnect catalogs have come since then, here are a few more numbers. In comparison, Colnect's Tea Bag catalog, then only in its beginning, has added more than 50,000 items, making it 20 times larger than its original starting point. The Stamps catalog, one of the most well-entrenched collectible fields on Colnect, has gone from 90,000 stamps to almost 450,000, adding close to 400,000 Stamps at that time period. The Colnect Phonecards catalog, then already celebrating a respectable size of 222,222 Phonecards has now almost tripled its size into over half a million phonecards and the largest Phonecards catalog in the world. This is not to mention (just for the lack of space in the article, since they do deserve a mention) all the new categories that have been added since then.

Emblem, Mother and Child Vietnam Stamp, newly added on Colnect

Growing catalogs mean a growing community. Colnect's collectors, then a lucky group of 8.888 members, has ballooned tenfold and will soon complete the even luckier 80,000 collectors. Colnect has then been experiencing 111,111 visits a month which are now more than 666,666 visits made by almost 400,000 users a month. The site rating given by the most reliable source available on website ranking, Alexa, has gone up from 83,000 to 36,485, climbing almost 50,000 steps up the competitive online ladder, which is more logarithmic than linear.

Grøn Te med Citrus, dif flap Denmark Tea Bag, newly added on Colnect

Earl Grey, dif flap Denmark Tea Bag, newly added on Colnect

All this data may seem cold, but what must be seen is that they are the mirror that reflects the work, dedication and heart of contributors, translators, editors, coordinators, too numerous to count. Each number contains years of searches, cooperation, attention to detail, challenges overcome and achievements made. It shows how much could be created when a group of people, no matter from which country, sex or age, gathers together over something they are truly passionate about.

Chinese Art China Phonecard, newly added on Colnect

Chinese Art China Phonecard, newly added on Colnect

Colnect's catalogs are meant to serve collectors wherever they may be and they do. On behalf of collectors everywhere we thank you, Colnect volunteers, for your efforts to create and perfect this invaluable source of information. This benefits all those who have or will chance upon collecting along their path.

Olivia sayana Ravenel Netherlands Antilles Stamps, newly added on Colnect