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Author Topic: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!  (Read 94772 times)

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Offline Carausius

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #25 on: June 28, 2015, 04:37:18 pm »
I just got home and compared the hand-pricing in my catalogue to Carthago's official prices realized  list.  They are an exact match!  Even the combined lots are correctly  identified in my catalogue by bracketed prices.  I'm very pleased to have a hand-priced copy of this important sale, and also pleased that the "pencil notations throughout" likely reduced the price I paid from the (non-numismatic) book seller!

Thanks again for sharing that photo, Carthago.

Offline Carausius

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #26 on: July 25, 2015, 12:16:18 pm »
Received in today's mail:

R. Ratto - Feb 1930 - Collection Joseph Martini de New York.  Original card covers with loose plates in integrated folder.  Cover and plates folder a bit worn, but contents and plates in great shape.  Happy to have this important sale catalogue checked-off my want list!

I will likely rebind this catalogue, but need to give serious consideration on how to handle the plates.  Three of the plates are double-sized, folded aes grave plates.  I could simply continue the integrated folder concept - the plates have survived well enough after 85 years in such a folder - but I do feel that there is greater risk of inadvertently damaging or losing plates with that approach.  I could also have the plates hinged, so that the folded plates can be folded into the bound catalogue - like a Playboy centerfold.  The Attic reprint of the Sydenham catalogue handles double -size plates that way, and it seems to work well. I would be curious to hear from any Forum members that have a rebound copy of the Martini or Sydenham catalogues - how were your plates bound?

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #27 on: July 26, 2015, 04:20:59 am »
Quote from: Carausius on July 25, 2015, 12:16:18 pm
R. Ratto - Feb 1930 - Collection Joseph Martini de New York.  Original card covers with loose plates in integrated folder.  Cover and plates folder a bit worn, but contents and plates in great shape.  Happy to have this important sale catalogue checked-off my want list!

I will likely rebind this catalogue, but need to give serious consideration on how to handle the plates.  Three of the plates are double-sized, folded aes grave plates.  I could simply continue the integrated folder concept - the plates have survived well enough after 85 years in such a folder - but I do feel that there is greater risk of inadvertently damaging or losing plates with that approach.  I could also have the plates hinged, so that the folded plates can be folded into the bound catalogue - like a Playboy centerfold.  The Attic reprint of the Sydenham catalogue handles double -size plates that way, and it seems to work well. I would be curious to hear from any Forum members that have a rebound copy of the Martini or Sydenham catalogues - how were your plates bound?

I wonder who you thought might answer this question ;)

Sydenham - stitched in the centre of the page
Martini Ratto 1930 - stitched in the centre of the page

You can see exactly how it looks in the photo below.

However as a caution, my copy of Quadras y Ramon Bourgey Nov13 happens to have a poor quality copy of Martini Ratto 1930 bound in; in this copy, centre-stitching is also used but somehow the binding is so tight that one just can't see the coins at centre. It's tough to advise your bookbinder to bind-loose, but you may need to discuss it. All that said, those few aes grave at the centre of those three pages are not very consequential. I do have other catalogues where one edge is stiched in and the page folds out. Possibly if that's an option its worth discussing.


Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #28 on: July 26, 2015, 04:43:06 am »
I had lucky provenancing spree on Friday evening: in a three hour period I found six provenances in Muenzen und Medaillen (Basel) fixed price lists from 1950s to 1980s. Of those six, one was a coin on its way to be sold, and one was a provenance I already had in my records. Four were entirely new, and three of those were pre-Novevember 1970, which is the Gold Standard when it comes to provenances. Here are the four:


Muenzen und Medaillen (Basel) List 189 April 1959 lot 41


Muenzen und Medaillen (Basel) List 215 September 1961 lot 71


Muenzen und Medaillen (Basel) List 260 December 1965 lot 24


Muenzen und Medaillen (Basel) List 352 January 1974 lot 32

On Saturday I continued my quest and scored zero when searching Schulten and MunzZentrum (except the famed MunzZentrum XXX 1977 sale from which I've about a dozen bronzes). But I learnt some things from the process I followed Saturday and from the success on Friday. The reason for my luck with Muenzen und Medaillen (Basel) is that their coins are typically of the quality I collect: rare coins in quite nice condition and commoner coins in really nice condition (but not FDC) such as the LEG II and the Faustus Sulla. But the sales I checked Saturday were mostly full of common coins in quite nice condition or rare coins in terrible condition. I realised it was pretty much inevitable that I'd find nothing. So for some catalogue series, one can quickly enough determine whether or not its likely to be useful. I did however on Saturday find three or four coins which I used to own but sold in recent years. Thus those catalogues reflect the quality of coins I collected maybe twenty years ago, and I've few of such coins in my collection today.

Offline Carausius

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #29 on: July 26, 2015, 11:28:39 am »
Quote from: Carausius on July 25, 2015, 12:16:18 pm
I would be curious to hear from any Forum members that have a rebound copy of the Martini or Sydenham catalogues - how were your plates bound?

I wonder who you thought might answer this question ;)


I had two likely candidates in mind.  ;)  Thanks for your reply.  I'm not too keen on the center stitching, as I want to preserve full visibility. I'm leaning toward hinging and binding the left side of each double plate so that they fold-out.  I'm hopeful this can be done in a single volume without page-sizing issues.

Offline Carausius

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #30 on: July 26, 2015, 11:37:47 am »
I had lucky provenancing spree on Friday evening: in a three hour period I found six provenances in Muenzen und Medaillen (Basel) fixed price lists from 1950s to 1980s. Of those six, one was a coin on its way to be sold, and one was a provenance I already had in my records. Four were entirely new, and three of those were pre-Novevember 1970, which is the Gold Standard when it comes to provenances. Here are the four:


Muenzen und Medaillen (Basel) List 189 April 1959 lot 41


Muenzen und Medaillen (Basel) List 215 September 1961 lot 71


Muenzen und Medaillen (Basel) List 260 December 1965 lot 24


Muenzen und Medaillen (Basel) List 352 January 1974 lot 32

On Saturday I continued my quest and scored zero when searching Schulten and MunzZentrum (except the famed MunzZentrum XXX 1977 sale from which I've about a dozen bronzes). But I learnt some things from the process I followed Saturday and from the success on Friday. The reason for my luck with Muenzen und Medaillen (Basel) is that their coins are typically of the quality I collect: rare coins in quite nice condition and commoner coins in really nice condition (but not FDC) such as the LEG II and the Faustus Sulla. But the sales I checked Saturday were mostly full of common coins in quite nice condition or rare coins in terrible condition. I realised it was pretty much inevitable that I'd find nothing. So for some catalogue series, one can quickly enough determine whether or not its likely to be useful. I did however on Saturday find three or four coins which I used to own but sold in recent years. Thus those catalogues reflect the quality of coins I collected maybe twenty years ago, and I've few of such coins in my collection today.

Congratulations on your discoveries.  Not surprising, as they are great coins.  You said recently that FPLs were the secret.  Not too long ago, I saw several groups of MuM FPLs from the 1950s-1970s  for sale. However, they were not complete, and I thought they had likely been picked-over, so I did not buy them.

Offline carthago

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #31 on: July 26, 2015, 12:08:14 pm »
Quote from: Carausius on July 26, 2015, 11:28:39 am
Quote from: Carausius on July 25, 2015, 12:16:18 pm
I would be curious to hear from any Forum members that have a rebound copy of the Martini or Sydenham catalogues - how were your plates bound?

I wonder who you thought might answer this question ;)


I had two likely candidates in mind.  ;)  Thanks for your reply.  I'm not too keen on the center stitching, as I want to preserve full visibility. I'm leaning toward hinging and binding the left side of each double plate so that they fold-out.  I'm hopeful this can be done in a single volume without page-sizing issues.

I'd bind it it hinged on the left side so you can fold them out.  I'm not by library at the moment to give specific examples, but I've got few catalogues that are bound that way it it works great.  If they are larger than normal plates, you may be able to have them trimmed a bit to size and not affect the coins.  I have a copy of Martini that it completely falling apart that I need to have bound too. 

Nice addition to your library BTW.  Monster sale!

Offline carthago

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #32 on: July 26, 2015, 12:22:30 pm »
Quote from: Carausius on July 26, 2015, 11:37:47 am
Congratulations on your discoveries.  Not surprising, as they are great coins.  You said recently that FPLs were the secret.  Not too long ago, I saw several groups of MuM FPLs from the 1950s-1970s  for sale. However, they were not complete, and I thought they had likely been picked-over, so I did not buy them.

I have a mostly complete run of the M&M FPL's and there are some great coins in them, though it's hit and miss as to when they were offering RR.  It seemed that the firm would focus on specific areas in each of their catalogues.  Some would have no RR, some would have only a few, some would have a bunch.   I hope to someday soon do a cheat sheet of the important ones (to me, Roman Republican) and I'll share it so maybe you could look to buy just those.  I bought the majority of mine as a lot, bound years ago in multiple year groups.  There were gaps in them that I've since filled for completeness and need to get all of them rebound to include the stragglers.  Without a cheat sheet, however, it's hard to go looking for provenances in them because it's so hit and miss with the offerings. 

Offline Carausius

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #33 on: July 26, 2015, 04:23:36 pm »
Quote from: carthago on July 26, 2015, 12:22:30 pm
 I hope to someday soon do a cheat sheet of the important ones (to me, Roman Republican) and I'll share it so maybe you could look to buy just those.  I bought the majority of mine as a lot, bound years ago in multiple year groups.  There were gaps in them that I've since filled for completeness and need to get all of them rebound to include the stragglers.  Without a cheat sheet, however, it's hard to go looking for provenances in them because it's so hit and miss with the offerings. 

Some sort of index would be awesome. My fear with buying incomplete groups of FPLs is to find that the ancient-weighted lists had been cherry-picked.  Buying complete runs or nearly compete runs, as you did, is one solution.  Knowing the contents of each list in advance is another solution.

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #34 on: July 26, 2015, 09:40:56 pm »
Quote from: Carausius on July 26, 2015, 04:23:36 pm
My fear with buying incomplete groups of FPLs is to find that the ancient-weighted lists had been cherry-picked.  Buying complete runs or nearly compete runs, as you did, is one solution.  Knowing the contents of each list in advance is another solution.

Exactly this happened to me. I bought a massive group of Glendinigs catalogues for quite a high price, dating from the 1920s to 1970s, only to retrospectively realise that the group was the residue of a pick process. I actually had that information in advance as the seller happened to be also retailing a number of individual sales for prices that seemed too high whereas the group of about 100 seemed a bargain. Well it wasn't. I was just stupid. I learnt something.

It's most cost effective, if one has the time, to spend time in a numismatic library. For one thing it helps in identifying what catalogues may be worth buying. And, as carthago and carausius already know, I produced a cheat sheet (website) on Republican auctions that was intended to take Spring to another level of detail. In turn, I relied on others most notably Warren Esty's site for my initial guidance on modern catalogues. Esty's site is really worth looking to.

http://esty.ancients.info/catalogs/

Most effective of all is to own, and consult, Banti for Republican coins or Banti-Simonetti for Imperial coins. I wonder what the equivalent resource would be for Greek coins.

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #35 on: July 26, 2015, 10:13:10 pm »
What do we define as a "provenanced" coin? Just musing.

- anything illustrated in a pre-1971 document of any kind, whether a minor FPL or a Dardel line drawing in Cohen automatically counts, even if you bought the coin on fleabay

- I generally think of a coin that has appeared in any printed and illustrated pre 1990 sale as having a provenance. 1990 is arbitrary but it essentially means prior to the collecting career of most of us, and that means finding that provenance means having had to go back in time

- I also regard any coin that has appeared in two modern sales, with the initial appearance in a first class venue at least 10 years ago, to have a provenance albeit a somewhat weaker one. So for example a coin sold by a CNG e-auction that also appeared in an early NAC sale. Or a NAC sale coin ex the Goodman collection sold in CNG 43-47.

- I don't regard any retail purchase as being of significance in provenance terms, if it wasn't illustrated in a printed catalogue. Nor any e-auction sale unless supported by some earlier better printed sale. Nor the mention of a collector name in a context not associated with a major sale. Nor a coin whose only appearance was in a modern sale, even if a first class one such as Triton. These are just "where and from whom I bought the coin". That doesn't count as provenance to me. That's just purchase records. And if I buy from a dealer who bought at a recent auction, I record it as "NAC 123 via dealer J.Bloggs". In other words the interim ownership by the dealer isn't of consequence, only the printed sale the coin appeared in.

With this hierarchy in mind, my collection can be split into
1. old provenance coins as I defined above
2. coins bought from venues that are on the record and the sale can be found in acsearch etc
3. no provenance at all, and you'll just have to rely on my vouching for it when I say I bought it from a prestigious dealer or collector.

I've bought a lot privately over the years. So the last category is worrisome as it's much too large. But that's what I'm working on...

It's also a huge dilemma how to memorialise the provenance once found. Of course I mark pages with post it tabs and include information in my spreadsheet. But when I would come to sell, and mention that a coin comes from an Otto Helbing FPL in the 1940s, how can I demonstrate that to a dealer and his customer, neither of whom have my range of catalogues? I have considered copying and printing the coin image and description and a heading from the title page. A lot of work, and may prove inconveniently large for a seller to deal with.. One idea I've had is to write/print a link to an online record that includes a photo of a coin and its provenance. With short form links that's possible. For example
http://flic.kr/p/dVhhLd/
Which can be shortened on a coin ticket to an easily writeable length (NB this uses Base58 code which uses all upper and lower case letter and numbers except 0 O l I for avoidance of confusion), as follows

flic.kr/p/dVhhLd/

As you can see I've added provenance information below the coin. All this is a lot of work. But in terms of how it can enhance the value of a collection if done properly, it's time well spent

Offline Charles S

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #36 on: July 27, 2015, 03:12:56 am »
I think you are very strict concerning provenances.  For me, provenance means to know who were the keepers of an item before me.  That is independent of the intermediate dealer, auction house or sale, unless the previous keeper is mentioned.  Unfortunately, more often than not, that information is withheld by most sellers.  I did my best, even in the '90's to get more information on provenances but in vain.  All I could do is keep track of the date and dealers name from whom I got a coin, and occasionally, sometimes much later, be lucky enough to find the true provenance.  I know that the vast majority of my coins I bought twenty-five years ago come from a few old British collections, sold through dealers.  But if that is all you know, you have nothing really.  I cannot prove for any of those that they have been in my hands for that amount of time, nor where they were kept before.  I could as well have bought them yesterday.   Fortunately, I do not live in Germany...
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Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #37 on: July 27, 2015, 07:05:35 am »
I think you are very strict concerning provenances.  For me, provenance means to know who were the keepers of an item before me.  That is independent of the intermediate dealer, auction house or sale, unless the previous keeper is mentioned.  Unfortunately, more often than not, that information is withheld by most sellers.  I did my best, even in the '90's to get more information on provenances but in vain.  All I could do is keep track of the date and dealers name from whom I got a coin, and occasionally, sometimes much later, be lucky enough to find the true provenance.  I know that the vast majority of my coins I bought twenty-five years ago come from a few old British collections, sold through dealers.  But if that is all you know, you have nothing really.  I cannot prove for any of those that they have been in my hands for that amount of time, nor where they were kept before.  I could as well have bought them yesterday.   Fortunately, I do not live in Germany...

Yes I am strict. My provenance "situation" is at heart not as strong as yours, because 40% of my collection consists of Republican bronzes and a high proportion of these are ex Italian collections (even though they may have been found in Spain or elsewhere, simply because the nexus for Republican bronzes collectors is Italy). For understandable reasons those collectors will mostly have bought at retail rather than through a printed auction or FPL. In many cases I know for sure who the collectors were (B...; F....; R...; L...) and in quite a few cases two generations of collectors, and in rare cases even more  (I have more than one coin that was owned by F then L then B then R). But nothing of this can be verified. So were I to name the various collectors, it would add nothing to my proven provenance trail but at the same time it might raise issues. So for that reason, for the remaining 60% of my collection that is actually amenable to being provenance, I'm dead keen on finding the very best quality provenances and the very best proofs.

Offline Charles S

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #38 on: July 27, 2015, 09:04:07 am »
Yes, I see your point.  When it comes to evidence, it is the best or perhaps the only sensible way to go. 

There are a few cases where I found some of my recently acquired coins of unknown provenance (as usual) back as a plate in a reference work (Banti or Sear).  That is quite a thrill, but this only happens with the highest quality coins.  Nothing goes on labels with my coins, but everything is kept in a database, keeping track of all coin details, their tray position, and any attachment I want (e.g. the scan from a catalogue or reference plate) but also links to ACSearch, Wildwind, Forum records,  and so on....  At any moment I can locate all information of a coin in a particular tray, or vice versa.  I find it ideal !
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Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #39 on: July 27, 2015, 12:17:26 pm »
As a slight digression I wanted to draw the attention of RR silver collectors to one catalogue that may not be on their radars, but should be. Sotheby's 27-28 October 1993, sale of the NFA remains. 570 silver denarii all EF. The prior day's sale (it was a 3 day event) has a separate catalogue but almost no RR. The tricky thing about the 27-28 Oct sale is that the majority of coins are shown one side only and without weights, in group lots. But the photos are excellent and as the coins are all EF, one-sides provenancing is quit feasible.

Offline carthago

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #40 on: July 27, 2015, 12:21:00 pm »
What do we define as a "provenanced" coin? Just musing.

To me, it's documenting the ownership and sale of the coin as completely and as far back as possible.  If it's sold 10 times in the past 20 years, I want them all and I note everything in my database including estimates and realized prices if available.  I keep all of my tags as part of the provenance documentation.  

In terms of quality, I care most about provenances before 1980 and really start to get excited on finding new provenances prior to 1970.  My favorites come from auctions or FPL's prior to 1940.  The best provenances come from major sales and prominent collections that can be verified through photographs or accurate line drawings.

I supply full provenance information when consigning, but I wouldn't release prior individual owners that aren't published, unless they are dead.  

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #41 on: July 27, 2015, 01:15:12 pm »
Quote from: carthago on July 27, 2015, 12:21:00 pm
What do we define as a "provenanced" coin? Just musing.

To me, it's documenting the ownership and sale of the coin as completely and as far back as possible.  If it's sold 10 times in the past 20 years, I want them all and I note everything in my database including estimates and realized prices if available.  I keep all of my tags as part of the provenance documentation.  

In terms of quality, I care most about provenances before 1980 and really start to get excited on finding new provenances prior to 1970.  My favorites come from auctions or FPL's prior to 1940.  The best provenances come from major sales and prominent collections that can be verified through photographs or accurate line drawings.

I supply full provenance information when consigning, but I wouldn't release prior individual owners that aren't published, unless they are dead.  

I guess I'm mostly in the same place except that I really don't care at all about unverifiable intermediate steps (dealer buys from a published auction then flips to me). I've bought many coins through "flips". I bought four flipped coins this weekend, that, when I ever sell them, will probably be sold without the flipping dealer's name (sorry, not intending it to sound like that, but "flipping" is an ordinary adjective here!) Verifiability is what it's all about for me.

In terms of prior individual owners (that were not mentioned in a verifiable source), if I only could, I'd love to be able to name them because that is in a sense verifiable even if not in printed format. It's verifiable in that it's a matter of common knowledge that in the example I referred to, B..., F...., R...., and L.... are each known collectors of Roman Republican bronzes, indeed at least one of them is actually cited by Michael Crawford using his full name in his Collections list (RRC pp.126-130). But as most of these collectors are happily still with us, that means that I, sadly, can't use their names. Although I'd love to be able to do so.

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #42 on: July 30, 2015, 10:54:17 am »
Received in today's mail:

Bourgey - November 1913  -  Monnaise de la Republique Romaine (Coll. Vidal Quadras y Ramon).  In exceptional, original condition and unused. Only a bit of browning around the edges, as one would expect on a 113 year-old catalogue.

 How do I know it's unused?  Well, in addition to it being unmarked and unworn, it has two or three pairs of pages that are still conjoined on two sides - inadvertently uncut during the printing/binding process.  It could not have been used in this state!  Anyone using it would have sliced these pages apart.


Offline Carausius

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #43 on: August 09, 2015, 07:03:35 pm »
Received in yesterday’s mail:

1.   NFA XXVII (hardcover version). This is actually my first NFA auction catalogue. When I was a teenaged collector of ancient coins in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, NFA coins were beyond my limited budget. By the time I resumed collecting after a college/grad school respite, NFA was defunct. This catalogue is particularly strong in Roman Republican silver.

2.   CNG 46 and 47. These complete my run of The Goodman Collection catalogues, supplementing CNG 43, 45 and Triton I. It killed me to pay for them, as I had received them for free when issued; but my original, free copies didn’t survive a “pre-move purge” between homes.  I plan to dismember them and re-bind the Goodman portions in a dedicated volume. 

I have found a good quality bookbinder with whom I have begun a binding project for my growing catalogue collection. My initial, low-risk test was to have the bookbinder bind the three, NAC “Collection of a Student and his Mentor” catalogues into a single volume.  Results are shown below. I am pleased with the result and recently brought the bindery three more items for binding.


Offline carthago

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #44 on: August 09, 2015, 11:11:17 pm »
Carausius, you've been busy!

The Bourgey sale is a great addition and a rare catalogue.  A great collection and to find it nearly new is incredible!  Mine was in bad shape and I had it rebound so it's much better. 

It's my understanding that NFA XXVII was Roberto Russo's personal collection of Roman Republican coins.  I wonder if he was liquidating it to get NAC off the ground?  It's great that you can still get many of the NFA catalogues hardbound and new. 

I really like the label on the spine of your test binding.  The few books I've bound have had the title stamped on the spine, but I think the little label is much classier.   I've been assembling a complete run of NAC and CNG catalogues with the intent of creating a corpus for each auction house of strictly Roman Republican like McCabe has done with some of his.  As I look at the beautiful catalogues, I'm not sure I can pull them apart.  What if I decide to go Greek some day?   :o


Offline Carausius

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #45 on: August 09, 2015, 11:59:21 pm »
Quote from: carthago on August 09, 2015, 11:11:17 pm
I wonder if he was liquidating it to get NAC off the ground? 

From what I've read about Roberto Russo, I understand he had stopped collecting Republican silver in order to avoid conflicts of interest with his clients. So, perhaps he was liquidating to complete that break from collecting.


Quote from: carthago on August 09, 2015, 11:11:17 pm

I really like the label on the spine of your test binding.  The few books I've bound have had the title stamped on the spine, but I think the little label is much classier.

Thanks, I like it too! I picked the maroon leather for the label because it matched the color of the printing on NAC catalogues. In fact, I originally asked the bindery to use pale yellow cloth for the binding - to approximate the color of NAC catalogue card bindings - but the bindery did not have that color cloth.  I went with tan as a close substitute. I like to maintain some visual connection with the original, just to help me find the catalogues on my shelf. I'm a very visual person.


Quote from: carthago on August 09, 2015, 11:11:17 pm
I've been assembling a complete run of NAC and CNG catalogues with the intent of creating a corpus for each auction house of strictly Roman Republican like McCabe has done with some of his.  As I look at the beautiful catalogues, I'm not sure I can pull them apart.  What if I decide to go Greek some day?


I understand your reticence, and if I had a complete run or near complete run, I would think long and hard before dismembering them.  Of course, it's a personal decision, and storage space must be one major consideration.  The other consideration is the likely value of the catalogues as a resource. Andrew McCabe has mentioned the high hit rate of finding quality Republican coins in old catalogues. I don't know what the hit rate is for other series.


Offline Carausius

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #46 on: September 08, 2015, 11:01:02 am »
Received in today's mail:

Bourgey, December 1913 "Monnaise de L'Empire Romaine" (Coll. Vidal Quadras y Ramon, Part 2).  Another excellent condition example, with just a bit of shelf wear to the spine and light browning at edges.  Contents are crisp and near new.  I will bind this together with the November 1913 catalogue of the Republican portion of the collection. This Imperial  catalogue contains twice the number of plates as the Republican sale, and is about twice as thick. The two sales combined will make a nice volume.

One interesting coincidence. This catalogue, which I bought from a different source in a different country than the Part 1 Republican sale, also has several "conjoined" pages that were printed, but uncut by the printer.  The pages were then folded and bound with one or two conjoined sides.  This must have been a common issue with these two catalogues, and whether the pages remain joined is probably good proof as to whether the catalogue was used or not. 

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #47 on: September 09, 2015, 11:16:34 pm »
Quote from: Carausius on September 08, 2015, 11:01:02 am
Received in today's mail:

Bourgey, December 1913 "Monnaise de L'Empire Romaine" (Coll. Vidal Quadras y Ramon, Part 2).  Another excellent condition example, with just a bit of shelf wear to the spine and light browning at edges.  Contents are crisp and near new.  I will bind this together with the November 1913 catalogue of the Republican portion of the collection. This Imperial  catalogue contains twice the number of plates as the Republican sale, and is about twice as thick. The two sales combined will make a nice volume.

One interesting coincidence. This catalogue, which I bought from a different source in a different country than the Part 1 Republican sale, also has several "conjoined" pages that were printed, but uncut by the printer.  The pages were then folded and bound with one or two conjoined sides.  This must have been a common issue with these two catalogues, and whether the pages remain joined is probably good proof as to whether the catalogue was used or not. 

Another great sale.  Congratulations on finding it in such fine condition!  The catalogue portion of Part II of mine is photocopied though my plates are original.  I've bound it together as well.

On the cutting of the pages, I've found that in a few of my catalogues. The most notable Martini with several of the pages not divided. Interesting, isn't it?

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #48 on: September 10, 2015, 12:03:20 am »
Quote from: carthago on September 09, 2015, 11:16:34 pm
On the cutting of the pages, I've found that in a few of my catalogues. The most notable Martini with several of the pages not divided. Interesting, isn't it?

Yes, but unsurprising when you think of it. It's a sale catalogue such as dozens I get each year. I look carefully in my area and briefly flick through the pretty Greek or early Empire as well as checking for oddball sections such as group lots or Paduans. I wouldn't even flick through the pages covering Bactrian or anything eastern or LRBs or anything later. I'd be even less inclined to notionally flick through subjects that I know are of no interest if I had to cut each page to do so.

On page cutting, I've messed up a few old books by botched attempts with Stanley knives and such like to open uncut pages, wondering how in hell they did it so neatly, before it occurred to me that the simple way to uncut a book is all in one go with a guillotine press. Two cuts top and bottom chop chop, and every page is ready. It's easy for printers too. I wonder didn't they do it to preserve the newness of an unsold books, the equivalent of shrinkwrap. Most books were sold unbound so you'd have been expected to ask your binder to deal with it. My binder has a very impressive guillotine. Probably not much of this would apply to your average catalogue which as ephemera would neither be hardbound nor worth the bother of having guillotined after purchase (and you DID need to purchase these - cover prices were pretty high, 10 shillings or 5 Reichmarks being not unusual). I guess our 1930s collectors wielded letter openers but only on pages of interest.

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #49 on: September 10, 2015, 09:29:33 am »
Probably not much of this would apply to your average catalogue which as ephemera would neither be hardbound nor worth the bother of having guillotined after purchase (and you DID need to purchase these - cover prices were pretty high, 10 shillings or 5 Reichmarks being not unusual). I guess our 1930s collectors wielded letter openers but only on pages of interest.

Of course, these particular Bourgey sales are specialty catalogues; the first being all Roman Republican and the second all Roman Imperial.  I cannot imagine a letter-opener-wielding dealer/collector leaving random pages conjoined, particulalrly if they paid 10 shillings or 5 Reichmarks for the catalogues out of an interest in these series.  I think it more likely that either these were sent gratis to disinterested dealers/collectors who were on Bourgey's "good customer" list (as suggested in your first paragraph ), or they were "new old stock" that were never mailed to anyone.

I had no idea that this was a widespread issue in older books/catalogues, but it makes sense when you consider the old methods of manufacture and binding.

 

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