ctlgs is a database of things people collect, and a way to record the ones you own. These guides cover both halves: what is in the catalogs and how to read them, and what to do with your own shelf once you are signed in.
If you came looking for a site that is no longer online — Bookogs, Filmogs, Posterogs, Gearogs — start with the page for it. The databases were kept, and most of what was in them is here.
If you are new, the one idea worth reading first is what you own, down to the copy: every catalog here separates the title from the object you can actually hold, and that is why the detail goes as deep as it does. The shortest description anyone has found is a Discogs for books, films, gigposters, comics, gear and games — one pressing, printing or print run at a time. How ctlgs works is the tour.
Bookogs is no longer online. Its database was kept, and it is back at ctlgs: a Discogs for books, edition by edition, with your own copies on top.
Filmogs is no longer online. Its database is back at ctlgs: a Discogs for movies, catalogued by the disc or tape you own rather than by the film.
Posterogs is no longer online. Its database is back at ctlgs: a Discogs for gigposters, print run by print run, with your own copies on top.
Gearogs is no longer online. Its database is back at ctlgs as two catalogs: a Discogs for hi-fi and for synths, with your own gear on top.
Comicogs is no longer online. Its database is back at ctlgs: a Discogs for comics, issue by issue, with the copies you own and their condition.
Online collection management built on objects: one shared entry per edition or pressing, your own copies under it, with condition, location and price.
How the lists work on ctlgs: every catalog has a Collection and a Wantlist, adding to a collection makes a copy, and two of the same is two copies.
A shelf is a list you make and share: entries from any catalog, in your order, with a note on each. Published by default, or kept back as a draft.
How listings work on ctlgs: mark a copy you own as for sale, with an optional price and ships-from. No payment runs through the site and there is no fee.
A Discogs for video games: catalog the boxed release you own, not just the title — region, platform, completeness and condition, copy by copy.
Why ctlgs gives every printing, pressing and release its own entry, and why a catalog that only knows titles cannot answer a collector's question.
The condition scale each ctlgs catalog uses, what the top and bottom grades mean, where the scales disagree, and how to grade your own copy honestly.
When a variant deserves its own catalog entry and when it belongs in Notes: numbered runs, regional versions, reprints and cover variants.
First edition or first printing, how to read a number line, why the copyright date misleads, book club editions, and what the dust jacket is worth.
What an insurer or a police report needs after a fire, flood or theft: the object down to the printing, its condition, what you paid and when, and photos.
What DVD regions 1-6 cover, why Blu-ray's A, B and C are a different scheme, where 4K sits, and why PAL and NTSC are a separate problem.
