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Author Topic: Some new online resources I'm building  (Read 2969 times)

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Offline Steve Moulding

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Some new online resources I'm building
« on: November 17, 2021, 07:37:10 pm »
Hi everyone,

This is Steve Moulding. This is my first post, but I've been a quiet board reader and user of the excellent resources here for quite some time.

I want to let folks know about a couple of online projects I've been working on in my spare time for the past few years. This is not my day job, and very much a long-term labor of love. My website is rnumis.com.

The first project is an online database of historical numismatic auctions. I have entries for over 4000 sales covering 167 houses in 16 countries. There are some summary details for each sale and for many - but especially for those with Ancient coins - I try to provide links to any online versions of the auction catalog that I know of. I also list whether the catalogs (real or scans) are in my library...useful mainly for me, but also helpful if someone is looking for a particular lot description or image - always happy to help, if I can.
As an example, the auctions of Ars Classica - Naville & Cie (1921-1938) can be found here: https://www.rnumis.com/house_auctions.php?house=ARS

The second project has seen much more recent progress, but has been a long term goal of mine for many years. For the Ancient Greek coins of Italy and Sicily I'm building a searchable resource using coins from older sales. The goal is to help uncover - or just to see - provenances. I have just over 3000 lots entered so far...only the beginning but it's already fun to browse these older lots and play around. Filtering is currently by Region, Issuer, Weight, and Metal, but I'll probably add more filters later. This resource can be found at https://www.rnumis.com/greek_coins_top.php.

Well, these are very much works in progress but I hope somebody will find them useful as they currently stand.
Steve Moulding
New York

Offline Heliodromus

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #1 on: November 17, 2021, 08:45:56 pm »
WOW!

What an amazing stealth project!

I can see a lot of old catalog browsing coming up ...  :)

It'd be great if it was possible to filter the auctions by keywords, and availability of an online catalog, as well as by country and date (e.g. search for all auctions with online catalog matching keyword(s) "roman").

Ben

Offline Steve Moulding

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #2 on: November 17, 2021, 10:15:18 pm »
Thanks Ben!  :)

Great suggestions, shouldn't be too hard to implement. There are some amazing old sales that are now online thanks to Heidelberg, Gallica, NNP and others. I'm still finding them and adding the links. Enjoy browsing!

Steve
Steve Moulding
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Offline Steve Moulding

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #3 on: December 01, 2021, 08:35:03 pm »
Hi all, over at my rnumis website I've implemented one of Heliodromus/Ben's suggestions. In the Numismatic Auction Database you can now filter to show only those sales that also have links to catalogs available online, eg at archive.org, Gallica/BNF, or Heidelberg.

I'm actively populating links as I find them and there are still more to be done, but there are already 1300 catalog links. This should be a fast way to get at the catalog for many of the older (and some newer) auctions.

You can find the database at https://www.rnumis.com/auctions_top.php

Steve


Steve Moulding
New York

Offline Kevin D

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #4 on: December 02, 2021, 04:31:51 pm »
Steve,
Your website works very well for quickly identifying catalogs that are online and getting to their download locations. Good suggestion by Ben to have an 'online only' filter.

Today, I was able to find a Merzbacher catalog I didn't have, which is on Spring's most important Greek auctions list. Nice.

Offline Steve Moulding

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #5 on: December 03, 2021, 12:17:18 am »
Hi Kevin, great! Thanks for the feedback and I'm happy to hear it's useful for you.

The ANS has recently wrapped up an amazing job of digitizing an almost complete run of Glendining catalogs and posting them at archive.org (thank you Lara Jacobs).  I've added links to around 170 sales, many with plated ancients. 70 are in Spring's book.

Steve
Steve Moulding
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Offline Anaximander

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #6 on: December 03, 2021, 05:11:00 pm »
Hi, Steve. Thanks for your introduction. I’ve been referring to your “old” site listing of coin catalogs for a couple of years now. The new link you shared shows something wonderfully different.

Like you, in some ways, I've taken a big plunge into literature, but not so much catalogs as collections (yes, there’s some overlap). But when I need a catalog, I often struggle to locate it. I REALLY look forward to perusing your coin pedigree database, because that’s the large part of my desire to consult those old sale catalogs in the first place.

Those links to online catalog collections, like Gallica BnF, will be helpful. So many were largely unknown to me. Not for the first time, l’m learning about sites that I thought I knew….

Kudos!

Offline Steve Moulding

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #7 on: December 04, 2021, 01:32:31 am »
Hi Chris, thank you - really thank you - for that. 

For me, the whole catalog digitization, auction database and online link resources...it's useful, but is actually just several years of prelude to what I really want, which is the provenance database. That part is just getting off the ground. It's early stages, but with a few of the older sales entered (3500 lots or so), there's now enough to show people and get some feedback. Is it useful yet? Maybe, maybe not. With so few sales entered, you'd have to be really lucky to find a missing pedigree from a coin in hand today. But as more auctions get added the chances will get better. The direction is good. And it's still fun to play around.

I do discover missing pedigrees all the time between the coins already in the database. It's quite easy - visually - once the coins are weight-ordered. For example, many coins in Pozzi will show up again in another Naville sale soon after, but the Pozzi provenance is never mentioned. So I'll record those as well and so build up a record of where the coins have been seen...the Provenance Chains which are shown on the website. That's fun too. I think I have almost 80 new cases so far out of these 3500 records.

The bad news is how long it will take to build this database. For a single catalog with a couple hundred Italy/Sicily lots, it's at least a week of spare time work to do the image extraction from scans plus all the data entry. At that rate it's going to be 2-3 years to get up to the likely 25,000 or so records I think will constitute a reasonable Italy/Sicily database.

Gallica BnF, Heidelberg and archive are incredibly useful. I can't say it enough.  I keep looking for a similar resource that covers the Italian houses but so far little luck (gallica has a few Rattos).  Perhaps you know of one? 

Published collections I do buy and digitize as well (de Nanteuil, Locker Lampson, Lucien Hirsch etc), but mostly auction catalogs. Jameson I don't have, but it's online so I can refer to that for now. I've been recently getting into and buying the SNGs which I'd not paid much attention to, until recently. They are amazing sources of provenance information.

Well, thank you again Chris. Let's keep talking, and if you have feedback - good or bad - please let me know. I want those resources to get better.

Cheers,

Steve
Steve Moulding
New York

Offline Steve Moulding

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #8 on: December 29, 2021, 10:16:03 pm »
Hi Chris/Anaximander - so for fun I actually started checking some of your amazing gallery coins against the database over at rnumis.

I have to say your Lucania Metapontion Nomos looks an awful lot like Ars Classica V, Duplicates of the British Museum (1923), lot 469.
For example, look at the defect right of MA. Weights are very close too: 7.88g (Ars Classica V) vs 7.89g (yours). I saw the CNG 45 lot description doesn't mention any provenance.

https://www.rnumis.com/greek_coins_detail.php?dbid=ARS_19230618_469

What do you think?

Steve

ps I took the liberty of showing your coin here for comparison, hope that's ok. 
Steve Moulding
New York

Offline Kevin D

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #9 on: December 30, 2021, 05:51:04 pm »
Looks to me like you just added a great 99-year provenance to this coin. Nice!

Offline laney

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #10 on: December 31, 2021, 07:58:24 am »
What a valuable reference!  I'm certain I'll be a regular searcher.
Laney

Offline Ron C2

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #11 on: December 31, 2021, 09:35:47 am »
Great resource, is it a bridge too far to ultimately index and make the primary coin reference numbers searchable? I'm thinking probably yes.
My Ancient Coin Gallery: Click here

R. Cormier, Ottawa

Offline Steve Moulding

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #12 on: December 31, 2021, 10:09:44 am »
What a valuable reference!  I'm certain I'll be a regular searcher.
Laney

Thank you Laney! I hope it's useful and let me know anytime what would make it better.

Cheers,

Steve
Steve Moulding
New York

Offline Steve Moulding

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #13 on: December 31, 2021, 10:19:56 am »
Great resource, is it a bridge too far to ultimately index and make the primary coin reference numbers searchable? I'm thinking probably yes.

Hi Ron and thank you. I definitely want to get better indexing and I think we're on the same page re: the primary references. I did start on that path at the beginning but found it hugely time consuming and postponed it in favor of just getting basic lot information and images into the database (which still takes 95% of my time).

So, certainly not a bridge too far and it's a great suggestion. It will happen, just not sure yet how or when. One possibility is the project becomes more collaborative and interested people can reference tag by themselves, but we're not there yet.

Steve
Steve Moulding
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Offline Steve Moulding

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #14 on: December 31, 2021, 10:28:55 am »
Looks to me like you just added a great 99-year provenance to this coin. Nice!
Thank you, Kevin. Personally, I don't have any doubts it's the same coin and was happy find the possible connection. Waiting for Chris/Anaximander's feedback. I was actually even happier that it turned up so easily in the search, even with so few of the older sales added so far.

Cheers,

Steve
Steve Moulding
New York

Offline Ron C2

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #15 on: December 31, 2021, 11:29:09 am »
Steve - what was the search process you followed to notice that the Ars Classica 1923 auction coin is the same as the gallery coin?  If you have a good method for working this out, I'm sure many of us would try and repeat it for coins in our collections.
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Offline Steve Moulding

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #16 on: December 31, 2021, 11:47:51 am »
Hi Ron - I typically follow the same basic procedure.  In this case
  • Region=LUCANIA
  • Issuer=Metapontion
  • Weight Lo=7.87
  • Weight Hi=7.91
That returns 42 results, so I also set 48 results-per-page (not necessary, but just easier). Now it's just a case of making a visual match.

If something looks promising, click the coin card for the details where you can usually get links to the Heidi/gallica/archive plate page for larger images (description page too). This is important as the resolution on the images I show on the website is nowhere near high enough. I have my own hi-res scans of course (from which the website images are derived) but those images aren't hosted and anyway I find that seeing the whole description and plate pages via Heidi is great for context.

The weight window I used here is Chris Coin +/- 0.02g. I've seen different sales of the same coin sometimes differ on weights by 0.05g or more, so widening the window will increase the hit chance, but there will be a lot more results to wade through. Here we were lucky as the Ars Classica coin was only 0.01g different so was seen immediately.

Steve
Steve Moulding
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Offline Ron C2

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #17 on: December 31, 2021, 11:52:03 am »
Thanks Steve, now you need to expand it to the entire hellenistic period, and then start of Roman Imperial :)
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Offline Steve Moulding

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #18 on: December 31, 2021, 11:58:54 am »
Now we're talking, Ron  :)  I'd love that, but will either need to clone myself (unlikely) or get other people involved. Italy/Sicily is a good and (almost) manageable-size test of concept.

Steve Moulding
New York

Offline Anaximander

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #19 on: December 31, 2021, 03:39:47 pm »
I have to say your Lucania Metapontion Nomos looks an awful lot like Ars Classica V, Duplicates of the British Museum (1923), lot 469.
For example, look at the defect right of MA. Weights are very close too: 7.88g (Ars Classica V) vs 7.89g (yours). I saw the CNG 45 lot description doesn't mention any provenance.
https://www.rnumis.com/greek_coins_detail.php?dbid=ARS_19230618_469

Brilliant!  Yes, this is that coin. I now have, as mentioned by Kevin D in this thread, a pedigree for this coin.  This is a "data-mining" triumph of the rNumis database.  How exciting!

As for the visual comparison of the catalog and my Forum coin, I do believe that there must be some use of plaster casts.  There are two 'bubbles' towards the top of the Naville catalog photograph (obverse top left, reverse top right).  As you'll know, plaster casts were commonly used. The SNG Copenhagen relied heavily on them. I don't think that takes away anything from the attribution.

Offline Kevin D

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #20 on: December 31, 2021, 03:58:42 pm »
Hi Ron - I typically follow the same basic procedure.  In this case
  • Region=LUCANIA
  • Issuer=Metapontion
  • Weight Lo=7.87
  • Weight Hi=7.91
That returns 42 results, so I also set 48 results-per-page (not necessary, but just easier). Now it's just a case of making a visual match.

If something looks promising, click the coin card for the details where you can usually get links to the Heidi/gallica/archive plate page for larger images (description page too). This is important as the resolution on the images I show on the website is nowhere near high enough. I have my own hi-res scans of course (from which the website images are derived) but those images aren't hosted and anyway I find the seeing the whole description and plate pages via Heidi is great for context.

The weight window I used here is Chris Coin +/- 0.02g. I've seen different sales of the same coin sometimes differ on weights by 0.05g or more, so widening the window will increase the hit chance, but there will be a lot more results to wade through. Here we were lucky as the Ars Classica coin was only 0.01g different so was seen immediately.

Steve

I just tested it with a coin known to be in the Naville sale of the Bement Collection in 1924 (Naville VI Lot 98). The coin sold a couple times in the last 15 years, but the provenance had been lost over the decades (I found it by searching catalogs). I started my search on Steve's website with the weight listed in the coin's most recent auction appearance (no range, just the exact weight of 6.58 grams). It didn't come up (not surprising). Then I ran a search with the upside weight increased by 1/100 gram. It didn't come up. On the third search I decreased the downside weight 1/100 gram and it brought up the coin. All of this took about 10 seconds. I am very impressed.  Below is an image of the coin I searched. Comparing CNG 76 Lot 3003 with CNG E341 Lot 88 will show the change in cited provenance.


Offline Kevin D

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #21 on: December 31, 2021, 04:15:05 pm »
I have to say your Lucania Metapontion Nomos looks an awful lot like Ars Classica V, Duplicates of the British Museum (1923), lot 469.
For example, look at the defect right of MA. Weights are very close too: 7.88g (Ars Classica V) vs 7.89g (yours). I saw the CNG 45 lot description doesn't mention any provenance.
https://www.rnumis.com/greek_coins_detail.php?dbid=ARS_19230618_469

Brilliant!  Yes, this is that coin...I do believe that there must be some use of plaster casts...I don't think that takes away anything from the attribution.

Yes, many early catalog coin images were produced from casts, which sometimes adds to the challenge of identification, but knowing this helps. Congratulations on your good-looking coin, now with an attractive provenance.

Offline Ron C2

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #22 on: December 31, 2021, 06:04:22 pm »
Interesting. I assume to make them easier to photograph with the lighting available at that time?
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Offline Kevin D

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #23 on: December 31, 2021, 08:17:48 pm »
I don't know what the answer is, but your suggestion of lighting seems it could have been a factor.

I note that many Glendining catalogs do not list the weight of the coins, which means other parameters would be needed for a database search.

The link below is to an interesting article on how one company is using their old catalog images to conduct searches.
https://culturalpropertynews.org/rediscovering-old-provenances-for-ancient-coins/

Offline Jay GT4

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Re: Some new online resources I'm building
« Reply #24 on: December 31, 2021, 09:12:06 pm »
How did I miss this thread?  Fantastic resource.  Thanks for doing this.

Needless to say, I'll be going through my coins just in case. 

 

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