An old hand me down collection of a Dutch monk in Witten. Cool

[Vincent]

Saw this on the web and found it interesting to look.  Regarding a very diverse and intact Roman coin collection that was found in a Dutch Redemptorist monastery located in Witten, Limburg. The catalogue was hand written in Latin and the only thing known about the collection is it's two or three generations old, probably from the early 1900's. 86 coins in all and some very nice ones given to the collector monk from the local people that found them.

http://www.oudgeld.com/webbib/wittem.htm

[Barabus]

 I enjoyed the article,the photos with the old script was great. Thanks

[Vincent]

Glad you enjoyed reading and seeing some of the collection. I only wished they were able to show the complete collection of pictures of all coins.

[n.igma]

Wonderful in many respects.  

As I read the article I was reminded of the frequent discussion on this board of the best means of storage and cataloguing .... The fretting over flips, the trade-offs in trays, the allure of the Abafils, the cachet of cabinets combined with the form and filing of collector tags, cataloguing by cards, the experience of the Excel spreadsheet versus the wonders of Word ….  on and on it goes in the modern world of almost unlimited options and most certainly unlimited opinions.

Yet here we have a century old example of the simplest type that elegantly addresses all the questions that are frequently raised and more. In doing so it speaks eloquently to any collector today... beautiful is the message .... keep it simple, but comprehensive.

It also reminded of the approach of the probably greatest collector of all time, Virgil M. Brand (1862-1926), a wealthy American brewer, who developed an interest in coin collecting in 1889 and amassed one of the greatest private collections of all time, consisting of 386,000 (there is no typo here!) ancient and modern coins, including 68,000 gold coins.

His approach.....
  
Each coin in the collection was documented by an entry what became a thirty-volume set of descriptive ledgers that are now in the ANS. In a large Main Ledger, he assigned a serial number to individual and sometimes groups of coins, and noted date of purchase, dealer, quantity, and cost. The serial numbers were then used to find further details about the coins in a set of Secondary Ledgers that give individual coin composition, country, denomination, date, cost, condition, mintmarks, and description. You can read more of Brand’s approach here http://numismatics.org/Archives/Vmbrandbio

As for storage the collection was housed in cigar boxes that were packed into leather satchels, hidden behind his book collection, all stored in his apartment above the brewery. A pretty simple approach to cataloguing and storage with a clear message for any modern day collector!

Pass me that cigar box in preparation for the next round of coin purchases!  

[dafnis]

There was an interesting discussion about this, including translation from Latin by Curtis Clay) around 1.5 yrs ago: https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=84734.0