I had a friend (long passed, unfortunately) who kept an inventory of all the kits in his stash, including their purchase price. One day, he had a fire in his basement where the kits were stored. Now, his stash was sufficiently large to start a model hobby shop, thousands of kits. He had only the inventory, no receipts. He showed the inventory to the insurance adjuster, who was very favorably impressed, and happy to have the documentation. My friend got enough money to repair the fire damage, replace some of the kits he lost, and had money left over—enough to put a down payment on a small house in rural Wisconsin. Sold his old house, paid off the mortgage on the new one.

Since that day, I've kept a database of all my kits, a paltry 412. I also have a database of all my paints, and a photographic record of all my tools. It pays to be prepared for disaster.