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This is really stupid, but I'm thrilled and will share mostly just because I want to, but also because perhaps someone will learn something. 

I keep two separate (slightly different) excel spreadsheets of my collection. The total of amount of cards I have in my collection on each of those sheets is the same. Of course. And that number matched the total reflected here for about two years. Then, somehow, the number here became three higher than my actual number. Then eight. I could not, for the life of me, figure out why. I had a hunch it had to do with the way I went about recording a couple trades here, but I could not find the error. It drove me crazy for months, but I learned to live with the fact that the number of cards the site thought I had was eight higher than the number of cards in my actual collection. 

Then today I started to play and I explored my (six!) trades. And I found five 1969 cards I had traded for that were listed twice in my collection. The number of cards the site said I had in 1969 matched the number I thought I had, because the database doesn't count doubles in the number of cards one has in a given year. (Follow?) So finding that error was pretty difficult. But I deleted those five. Then I discovered the feature that allows me to move all duplicates into my trade list. And slowly doing that year by year for years I had dealt with recently, THE OTHER THREE WERE FOUND! Now my collection here perfectly matches my spreadsheets and I can stop drinking heavily and start sleeping soundly. Huge sigh of relief. 

Hmmmm, perhaps the practical suggestion I can make is that maybe the the site could reflect two numbers of cards owned by a member for each set: number of different cards; and total number of cards (including duplicates). Had I been able to see that, I would have found these errors months ago and saved thousands on therapy. 

Anyway, I won't have to think about it anymore, because I know the former error of my ways and this will never happen to me again. 

v3

The thought of going to all that trouble is enough to make me START drinking heavily!

Congratulations. I keep my records in four places, including here, and NONE of them match, even though I've solely created three of those places from scratch myself. (Two Excel files and my paper listing) Maybe, someday, I will be able to make the numbers all match. I have gotten a lot more detailed in my record keeping over the last few years. I got tired of making so many mistakes so I decided to document as much as possible. And it's not a small difference. One file is off from the other by several hundred cards.

Start...I'm already there lol!

Amazing that you spend that much time making sure they match.  I gave that up long ago.  I have spread sheets and printed copies.  I know that if I tabulated how many cards I have on each, they would vary.  I invariably forget to update one of the three (usually not this site) so by set, the numbers don't always match. I was hoping to find a good deal on a tablet yesterday (Canada's cyber and black Friday sales suck) which would give me access to this site when Iam looking to buy cards but now I wait till Xmas.

One of the projects I hope to do in the New Year is go through all my sets and confirm my checklists. Probably take the better part of 2018.

I’d like to be able to see that total number also. You can figure it out with some digging but it would be nice to see it in your collection summary or somewhere else. 

Most people probably wouldn’t care but I’d like to be able to see the history of when all cards were added also. 

I trust that my collection according to the database is accurate.  Trying to also keep track of an Excel spreadsheet would make my head spin.

i used the Database, along with Excel spreadsheets and also The Card Collector software....its a bit labor intensive, but it cuts down on making mistakes and finding/fixing the ones that i do make.

I started a summary spreadsheet years ago so I could track counts, value, notes, and whether I had loaded my for sale cards on sportlots amongst other things. I’m not adding things on Sportlots any more but I still maintain the spreadsheet even though this site has most of that other nformation. It does take some time but it makes for a nice and quick reference.

I like running both also. I utilize Excel as my master so I can ensure I don't have any data entry errors in here. That way I can use the site when I'm mobile and know everything should be good. Like others, it annoys me when my counts are off. I usually have both open at the same time so anything that I do in one I can make sure is reflected in the other. If I see an error, I fix it soonest. It annoys me to no end, and thankfully only happened once, where a trade request comes in and I don't actually have the card because I screwed up.