diff --git a/bin/combine-to-flat-yaml-and-json.py b/bin/combine-to-flat-yaml-and-json.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ec0c63c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/bin/combine-to-flat-yaml-and-json.py
@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+import yaml
+import glob
+import os
+import json
+
+def main():
+    # change directory to the data directory
+    os.chdir('../data/')
+
+    # gets all files with a yaml extension in the directory
+    yfiles = []
+    for file in glob.glob("*.yaml"):
+        yfiles.append(file)
+
+    yfiles.sort()
+    print("Going to combine the following files: {}".format(yfiles))
+
+    master_data = {}
+    # we want all our various item categories nested under an `item:`
+    master_data['item'] = {}
+    for x in yfiles:
+        print("Doing:\t{}".format(x))
+
+        with open(x, 'r') as r:
+            data = yaml.full_load(r)
+            for key in data.keys():
+                # print(key)
+                if key == 'staves':
+                    tmp = data[key]
+                    # print(tmp)
+                    master_data['item'][key] = data[key]
+                master_data[key] = data[key]
+
+    # print(master_data)
+
+    # change dir to repository root
+    os.chdir('..')
+
+    # WRITE TO A YAML FILE
+    print("Writing tmp-combined.yaml")
+    final = yaml.safe_dump(master_data, allow_unicode=True)
+    with open('tmp-combined.yaml', 'w') as f:
+        f.write(final)
+    print("\tDone.")
+
+    # WRITE TO A JSON FILE
+    print("Writing tmp-combined.json")
+    # have to have default=str as the dates aren't json serializable, this will just output them as a str
+    final = json.dumps(master_data, sort_keys=True, indent=1, default=str)
+    finalflat = json.dumps(master_data, sort_keys=True, default=str)
+    with open('tmp-combined.json', 'w') as f:
+        f.write(final)
+    with open('tmp-combined-flat.json', 'w') as f:
+        f.write(finalflat)
+    print("\tDone.")
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    main()