I'm excited to finally announce something I've been working very hard on for the past several months. Announcing the new and improved DukesCollector.com!
When I first decided to display my Dukes of Hazzard collection online, I purchased DukesCollector.com but didn't really have a vision for what I wanted it to be. I threw together a quick site that had a few pictures, but DukesCollector didn't really take off until I started this blog. Soon after the blog became a hit, the original site was lost due to a server crash. I never rebuilt it and just pointed the domain name (dukescollector.com) to the blog (dukescollector.blogspot.com).
That wasn't good enough for me. I wanted an online space that would accompany the blog and act as a database of the entire collection. I was surprised to find out there isn't easy database building technology like I envisioned readily available, so I decided to to build it myself. Using Wordpress and several add-ons, and a lot of help from web designers, I feel the new DukesCollector.com is ready to shine.
Each item in my collection will have a page dedicated to it. I am trying to keep the descriptions and information for each item concise. I go into detail on the blog posts. Every item will be cataloged by name, category, year, manufacturer, era, condition, and description. I also include a link to the blog post about the item. At this time I have several hundred items on the site and will continue to add more.
I've broken down the collection into categories, and the list seems to keep getting bigger. Items like the Gordy toys are separate from the "Toys" category and Ertl and Johnny Lightning have their own as well. The site is fluid and always changing and so is the category list.
One aspect of the original site that was lost that I really liked, and I'm quite proud of, was the portion dedicated to the 150 individual 1/144 Racing Champions cars that I collected that have all 150 collector cards. I revamped that portion and made a new page on the new DukesCollector featuring it. The picture is called a Zoomify file and viewers are able to zoom in on the entire collection to see each card. That area of the site can be found in the 144 page that is featured toward the top. Another page I created describes the different eras of Dukes of Hazzard collecting. I guess I can't expect everyone to understand the time period spans that I propose without a little explanation. I also included a little bio about myself if anyone stumbles upon that page without being familiar with this blog and its author.
The final part of the new site is the right side bar that has all sorts of fun information on it. There you will find contact information, exerts of the latest blog posts, my twitter and instagram feeds (I recently started using instagram for my drone pics) and the latest items added to the site.
A big aspect of the new site is for me to have a picture based database of all the items I own. If I am on ebay or on the go and run into something I'm not sure I have (which happens more often than it should) I can easily see what I have. I have been planning on creating that database for some time and thought the world might also enjoy having access to it. Who knows how long it will take to get everything online, but it sure will be fun finding out.
Wordpress and add-ons and widgets are all new to me and so far I've only had a few eyes on the site. With this "announcement" or "re-introduction," I'm putting it out there for the everyone to see. If you find any issues or have any suggestions, I'd love to hear from you. The million ways to contact me are all listed under that great picture of me leaning on Neal's Gen'ral on the right. I'm looking forward to some feedback and hope everyone enjoys the new site!
That's an impressive amount of work and a great resource for all Dukes collectors. Thank you for the time and effort you have put in.
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