Coin Database Program

Another project that I work on occasionally is a program to database my coin/money collection. I have a rather extensive collection of coins and bills from around the world (mostly from here in the US, but some are from other areas.)

One of the things I have wanted to do for a while (since I was about 10) is create a digital catalog of my collection. I've tried doing it with the Microsoft Office suite, and none of the programs seem to do quite what I want to do. The closest was Access, but Access is a mess and not at all user friendly, so I gave up on that.

I decided I wanted to make my own program to organize my collection. I have created a UI for it, I have talked to another collector and thought about all the things we would need to include for each item, I have created a way to auto-fill the drop-down boxes from an .ini file, I have started work on a method to display a picture of the coin/bill selected and the location of the mint mark on the item, and I have a lot of ideas of how I want things to look and work.

My main road block right now is storing the data. I'm not quite sure how I want to organize the data, how I want to store it, or save it (and restore it.) I think I need to talk to someone who knows a little more about data structures, databases, and/or data storage techniques.

Here's a quick peak at what the program looks like:

If you think you could help me with the data structure aspect of it, or know of someone who could help me with it, let me know. It would be much appreciated.