Hear! Hear!
I didn't know there would be a finish line. On the front of your site I see that you've been collecting ~25 years. I didn't know haven't found a description of the different phases of the project, but now I'm curious to know what they are...
Hi CJJ,
Phase I of my project lasted 18 months. I
had about 20-30 coins with
bronze disease, some mild, some moderate, and some severe. For 18 months, I treated them by soaking them in sodium sesquicarbonate.
Phase II of my project also lasted 18 months. In this phase of my project, I basically "cleaned up" my inadequate and/or sloppy tags. Over the years, I purchased
ancient coins from many different dealers. Some of those dealers used hand-written tags. Many of those hand-written tags were sloppy or severely lacking in information (or both). I re-wrote hundreds of my tags, making them neater and more full of information. This process took 18 months.
In particular, I purchased hundreds of coins (at least 200 coins) from Mr.
Lindgren before he passed away. As you probably know, he was a famous collector who owned about 10,000
ancient coins. He turned into a dealer near the end of
his life in order to properly dispose of
his collection. Unfortunately, Mr.
Lindgren stored
his coins in paper packets, not plastic
flips. Over the many decades that he owned
his coins, the seams on the paper packets split open, and the coins were falling out. Also, he wrote the information about the coins by hand on the paper packets. He
had sloppy handwriting, and the packets were severely lacking in information. They contained very brief descriptions of the coins, and that was it. Consequently, I
had re-write close to 100% of my
Lindgren tags. Of course, I wrote them neater. And I wrote much more thorough information.
His tags were such a disaster that I was able to save only a tiny fraction of them (maybe 1-2%). In some cases, I saved only pieces of them, because the paper packets were literally disintegrating. It is a shame because I would have liked to have saved many more of
his handwritten tags.
Phase III of my project was my website. This phase took 7 1/2 years.
Meepzorp