A catalog I thought I'd never find

[helvetica]

For over 20 years I have been looking for Josef Scholz's "Collection Ernst Prinz zu Windisch-Grätz", Vol. V (Greek Coins). It was printed in Prague in 1899 - the printing town and year alone diminish the chances of finding it. I have seen it sold at various auctions for $200-$400, way beyond my budget.
I have been hoping for years that Paris (gallica.fr) would scan their copy.
Well, several weeks ago, I decided to look for it again and I found one for sale on a Rumanian private sales website. By pure coincidence a coin collector in Rumania, with whom I had been corresponding 10 years ago, contacted me a couple of days later with a question, and he went and got the book for me - for the wonderful price (converted from Rumanian Leu) of 4.50 Swiss Francs. (about US$ 5).

It arrived today. It isn't in pristine condition, it looks like it may have been in a library - there is a label on the spine "VI / 4/IV" and one page is loose, but who's complaining at that price ?
I can't believe I actually have the book after searching for it for so long.

[Joe Sermarini]

Nice!

[Curtis JJ]

Congratulations! Sometimes people will say you can find anything published online somewhere...but that can be so far from the truth! Few things are better than finding a piece rare numismatic literature after a years-long search

[Anaximander]

Fantastic!  You probably paid more for postage than the book.

Would Scribd be a place to post a pdf of this work, assuming you have the means and the motive to do so?  Sadly, we don’t have Digital Library Numis to visit any longer.

[helvetica]

I have stopped putting stuff on scribd, the reason being that even though you set a pdf so that anyone can simply download it, scribd often ask the user to upload an increasing number of pdfs in order to be able to download. A couple of weeks ago I wanted to download a 12 page article and was asked to upload 14 (!!!) documents.
This leads to an increasing number of empty pdfs or pages with a single line on scribd.

There is also the problem of scanning the book. It is quite fragile - the glue holding the pages in place is, after all, over 130 years old, so to opening the book out, in order to place it on my scanner might well break the glue holding the pages to the spine. (Rather like my jaw which dislocated when I yawned very widely back in June, although my jaw is not 130 years old  . Following my doctor's instructions it's nearly back to normal again).

Perhaps Paris will scan theirs one day, I am sure they must have a copy.