I collect things. Then I build the display case.
Ancient coins · 100,000+ stamps · anime ratings · arcade high scores · audiobook hours · travel pins —
and one purpose-built app for every one of them.
Curator's note. Every collector hits the same wall eventually: the catalogue you actually want doesn't exist yet. Numismatists end up writing their own. Philatelists end up writing their own. I write software — so each obsession got its own case, built to fit. What follows is the register: every specimen numbered, graded, and on display.
| Cat. № | Specimen | Catalogue notes |
|---|---|---|
| DM‑001 | danmat.dev | The display case itself. One set of content, rendered in three arcade skins chosen at random per visit — three known varieties, so refresh to draw another. Runs on Nimbus, my own CMS (see DM‑002). The rest of this register is what's inside it. |
Specimens are filed by series — the hobby that demanded them — and graded on the key below.
| Cat. № | Specimen | Series | Grade | Catalogue notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DM‑002 | Nimbus CMS | Shelving | MS | A lightweight PHP CMS an agent can run. The shelving every other case sits on. |
| DM‑003 | Numistoria | Numismatics | AU | An ancient‑coin museum: 20 "worlds", ~300 coins told as one continuous story. Owned so far: ~25. The rest are the hunt. The newest obsession here (this year) — filed first because it's the one I can't stop talking about. |
| DM‑004 | stamp‑grader | Philately | MS | Honest stamp centering from a single photo. Will not tell you it's XF when it isn't. |
| DM‑005 | PhilatelyOS | Philately | PR | AI vision that catalogues a 100,000‑stamp collection. Private — struck for one collector. |
| DM‑006 | Retroix | Arcade | MS | A from‑scratch vanilla‑JS arcade engine and 7 games on top of it. A high score you can't display hasn't really been collected. |
| DM‑007 | AniYears | Anime | MS | Your anime year in review, pulled from MyAnimeList. |
| DM‑008 | mal‑rater | Anime | MS | Keyboard‑fast bulk rating for a MAL backlog. Writes ratings back so the list is finally complete. |
| DM‑009 | Crunchyroll → MAL sync | Anime | AU | Watch history flows into MAL on a schedule — nothing is written until I approve it. Review‑first, because a catalogue you don't trust is just a list. |
| DM‑010 | earshot | Listening | MS | Your audiobook year, auto‑pulled from Audible. Hours are a collection too. |
| DM‑011 | droppin / waypoints | Travel | MS | Turn a Google Timeline export into a private travel map. Pins, no tracking. |
| DM‑012 | Divvy | Money | MS | Replay your real investing history against a different portfolio and see what you'd have. |
| DM‑013 | packkit | Workshop | MS | Provider‑neutral project scaffolding: CLI + MCP + web. Lineage traces to the SPA generators I built, pre‑AI. |
| DM‑014 | @danmat on npm | Workshop | AU | Small, sharp libraries. First set: an HTTP QUERY (RFC 10008) toolkit, starting with query-fetch. |
Grading key (borrowed from the coin cabinet)
| Grade | Meaning |
|---|---|
| MS | Mint State. Live, public, in daily use. |
| AU | About Uncirculated. Live, still being polished — or still being filled. |
| PR | Proof. Struck for a single collector. Private. |
Dan Matthew.
I describe myself as an app orchestra: one person, a lot of instruments, and a habit of building the whole app whenever a real gap shows up rather than waiting for someone else to close it. I work openly with heavy AI collaboration. I write the score — the gap, the shape, the taste, the tests — and the models play a great many of the notes. That's leverage, not a confession, and I'd rather show my work than pretend otherwise.
The through‑line is simple: a collection is only as good as its catalogue, and I've never met a catalogue I didn't want to rebuild.
| Count | |
|---|---|
| Apps shipped | 11 |
| Open‑source PRs merged (out on loan, across ~15 other collections) | 14 |
| Site skins from one content set | 3 |
| Arcade games on one engine | 7 |
| Stamps in the collection | 100,000+ |
| Coins in Numistoria's story / owned so far | ~300 / ~25 |
| Worlds those coins span | 20 |
🖼️ danmat.dev · 🐙 github.com/DanMat · 📦 npm/@danmat
Trade notes welcome — on coins, on stamps, or on shipping a small app fast. Issues are open on every public specimen.
Register compiled with a great deal of AI collaboration and no apology. Counts current as of September 2026. New acquisitions are added as they're struck.