One step forward, two steps back

I've been trying to create a spreadsheet-based inventory of my collection, and a separate one to inventory what I have for trade. I have tons of stamps left over from when I tried to make a living as a dealer (I had enough material, it just wasn't what people wanted, and was too cheap to make a living on the tiny profit margin I had). I want to put them all into an Excel spreadsheet, and forward a CD with the data on it to my trading partners.

Excel doesn't like several thousand entries, each with calculations and each affecting a final sum. My last attempt at saving my spreadsheet took almost an hour. I tried to do it in Quattro Pro, but that didn't work very well, either. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm open... I've already broken the spreadsheet down into three pages, because I have more than 75,000 DIFFERENT duplicate stamps for trade.