Introducing My Collection — a Free Tool for Cataloging Your Hand Tools

I built a small thing I've wanted for years, and starting today it's available to anyone who wants it. It's called My Collection, and it's a free tool for cataloging your hand tools — saws, planes, chisels, braces, whatever you've collected — with photos, notes, and the basic facts you'd want to have written down somewhere that isn't a shoebox.

You can find it at collection.benchandchisel.com or through the "Track Your Collection" link in the main store navigation.

Why I built this

Most collectors I talk to are tracking their tools one of three ways. A spreadsheet that started out organized and stopped being organized somewhere around the fourteenth saw. A box of receipts and a memory. Or nothing at all, which is the most common one. None of these survive contact with a basement flood, an insurance claim, an estate, or honestly just the question "what did I pay for that?" three years later.

The collectors who do keep good records tend to be the ones who've already learned the hard way — the saw that disappeared in a move, the brace that went to a relative who didn't know what it was, the plane that got sold off below value because nobody had any documentation. The records aren't precious for their own sake. They're useful when you need them and impossible to recreate after the fact.

I wanted a tool that worked the way a collector actually works: photo first, notes that match how you talk about a saw rather than how a database would, and a way to get the whole thing back out as a PDF or spreadsheet whenever you want it. Nothing in the cloud you can't export. Nothing locked behind a subscription.

What it does

Sign up with an email and a password. Add a tool by taking a photo and filling in a short form — maker, model or type, condition, purchase price, where you bought it, notes, restoration log if you've done work on it.

The collection screen shows everything you've added in either a list or a grid, sorted however you want it, searchable by maker or keyword. Tap a tool to see the full record. Edit it whenever you find something new — a maker you couldn't identify when you first got it, a sharpening you finally got around to, a price you want to update.

Two exports, both included. A CSV if you want to drop your collection into a spreadsheet or import it somewhere else. A PDF if you want a documented inventory you can print, hand to an insurance company, or leave with the rest of your important paperwork. Both have the full details on every tool, not just a summary.

It works on a phone, a tablet, or a desktop. Photo uploads keep the original resolution so you can zoom in on a medallion or an etch later. Your tools are private to your account — nobody else sees them, including me.

What it doesn't do

It doesn't try to identify your saws for you. Identification is a thing that benefits from looking carefully and being honest when you don't know — and the AI tools I've tested confidently mislabel saws often enough that I'd rather leave it out of v1 than build a feature I can't trust. If that changes — if I find a way to make AI assistance actually useful without quietly recording wrong answers as fact — I'll add it as an option. Until then, the form is the form. If you want help identifying a saw, the identification guide and the Disston Buyer's Guide on this site are where I'd start, along with the references they point to.

It doesn't try to value your collection. The market for any specific vintage tool depends on its exact condition, the venue you're selling through, and what someone wants to pay that week. Putting a number on it would be guessing dressed up as fact.

It doesn't share, list, or sell anything for you. It's a private record. That's all.

It doesn't connect to anything. No marketplace integration, no eBay sync, no public profile. Just your own collection on your own account.

Who it's for

If you've got more than five hand tools and you can't quickly tell me what you paid for the third one, this is for you. If you've ever opened a drawer and thought "wait, when did I get that," same. If you want to be able to hand someone a printed inventory if something happens to you — which is the version of this conversation I have with collectors more often than you might think — this is the simplest way to make that exist.

It's also useful if you're early in building a collection and want a place to track what you've found, where, and for what. The notes field is where most of the value ends up living over time: the story of where the saw came from, what was wrong with it, what you fixed.

How to start

Go to collection.benchandchisel.com and sign up with an email and password. Confirm your email when the message arrives. Add your first tool. Takes about a minute once your photo is ready.

If you want to do it right, set aside half an hour with the tools you care most about and work through them one at a time. Photos of the medallion, the etch if there is one, the full saw, and any maker's marks. Notes about provenance — where you bought it, when, what you paid, what story came with it. That's the documentation that becomes useful later, and the part you're least likely to recreate if you ever need to.

It's free, and it will stay free for what's there now. I may add paid features down the road — verified records for saws sold by Bench & Chisel, more sophisticated identification help, things like that — but the core ability to catalog what you own and export it on your own terms isn't going anywhere behind a paywall.

If you run into something that doesn't work or have an idea for what would make it more useful, send me a note. I'm the one who built it.

Aaron, Shopkeeper and Saw Doctor, Bench & Chisel