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Author Topic: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!  (Read 94783 times)

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Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #175 on: May 12, 2016, 07:12:48 am »
Why did they make plaster casts back then instead of just photographing the coins?

Good question.

It provides far better photos (the bad exception above is NOT typical), labour costs were low a century ago, and in advance of photoshop and digital cameras, the chances of getting a direct photo even remotely good were minimal - imagine photographing your coins today in the absence of preview screen - whereas plaster cast photography was a known reliable technique. Also, photographic printing costs were then very high indeed (using a lot of silver) so if you were going to spend a lot of money photographing just a few coins - they always selected just the best coins rather than photographing everything - and the cost was anyway going to be high, you might as well spend the extra to make plaster casts and make the photos as good as possible. Furthermore, to make up the plates needed a second photograph - of the photos sitting on the background of the plate with numbers under (again, in advance of photoshop) using a copy stand. Evidently if you start with prints and then have to photograph those, they'll be a whole lot worse than starting with a sharp plaster cast. To see what "just photographing the coins" resulted in, you need only look at the Rheinhold Faelten 1938 Stacks sale - possibly the worst ever plates - and just about any catalogue from the 1970s which was after printing became cheap and labour costs for plaster casts became dear, but before photoshop allowed digital improvements; the 1970s represents the nadir of coin photography.

Offline Molinari

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #176 on: May 12, 2016, 07:32:56 am »
That's interesting.  I know some academic works still do that, like HN Italy, for example.  I bet HN Sicily will too.  I'd imagine it is especially helpful for bronze.

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #177 on: May 12, 2016, 07:37:22 am »
That's interesting.  I know some academic works still do that, like HN Italy, for example.  I bet HN Sicily will too.  I'd imagine it is especially helpful for bronze.

Yes, especially helpful for bronzes.

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #178 on: May 12, 2016, 06:16:12 pm »
My Brutus with trophy is also Naville Ars Classica 17 (3 Oct.1934) lot 1045. It's rapidly becoming one of my best-provenanced coins.

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #179 on: May 13, 2016, 05:15:55 am »
Julius Caesar and Numonius Vaala, a rare type, Hirsch 34 (5 May 1914) lot 796, below. A 99 year gain on its previous Randy Haviland collection provenance. My Arria Secundus (Octavian) dates from 1909. I'm still seeking my Servius Rufus (Brutus) which has that typically old collection look - pic also below. 25th pre-war provenance, 6th over a century old. I'd forgotten my Apostolo Zeno (1750) and Northumberland (1856) in the prior count. I've finished my trawl through acsearch, and so far I've found two good old provenances - this coin, and my wolf and twins didrachm from a Cahn sale. Two observations on using acsearch

- it's a real problem when the auction exceeds 1000 lots. The OCR is ... as good as OCR usually is, in other words not much ... and the software doesn't allow you to page through lots after 1000 even if you use the offset:1000 term. acsearch becomes unusable for large auctions. What I've tried, with partial success, is to search on "roma" on the hope that the OCR will have occasionally have picked it up correctly. That might for example locate lot 1372. Then you have to manually search each number adjacent to it. 1371, 1373 etc. etc. It's really impractical. This needs fixing, at least so that when you use the "offset" command, you are still allowed 1000 results from that point onwards e.g. lots 1000-1999 for offset:1000

- There's no consistent ordering in the old catalogues though of course we just have to live with that. Sometimes it's the 'normal' order. Sometimes Rome is first. Sometimes the didrachm coinage is mixed in with the coins of Naples and the denarius Roman stuff is later. Sometimes it starts with Spain and then early Roman before resuming Greek and then the denarius coinage. Sometimes aes grave first and struck Roman at the very end. What works for me is to manually scroll through the first lots until I'm at least past Naples, and then use the offset command to page through until Greek coinage finishes.

The acsearch archives currently includes Cahn (most), Hess (very few), Muenzhandlung Basel (most), Naville Ars Classica (most), Bruder Egger (some), Jacob Hirsch (some), all predating 1940. I look forward to their adding later sales, especially from the 1970s and 1980s.

Addendum: I've just sent a box to my better bookbinder. Several books: Goltzius Fastos 1576, Fabretti Turin Collection 1860s, Comparette Aes Signatum. Remainder catalogues, about seven volumes with typically 3 or 4 bound together so about 25 catalogues. Virtually all old timers, pre 1970. My less better though price-efficient other bookbinder will get my chopped up modern catalogues with the Republican sections extracted.

Offline Carausius

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #180 on: May 13, 2016, 10:27:43 am »
Great finds. I haven't yet experimented much with acsearch's early catalogues. My tendency is to search Republican coins by Crawford number, which, of course, is completely useless for pre-1975 catalogues.  I also don't  know how acsearch has indexed these old catalogues. Are they using bare bones device descriptions in English, full attributions in English (a lot of work) and/or full original language (French, German) attributions from the old catalogue entries. How they go about entering these old catalogues in the database certainly impacts searching strategies.

Good luck with the catalogue bindings! I'm due to see my binder at the end of the month for another exchange. I'm also thinking about adding a new, long and low bookshelf beneath a double window in my office. This location  has the added benefit of keeping the spines protected from the sunlight.

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #181 on: May 13, 2016, 10:59:07 am »
Quote from: Carausius on May 13, 2016, 10:27:43 am
Great finds. I haven't yet experimented much with acsearch's early catalogues. My tendency is to search Republican coins by Crawford number, which, of course, is completely useless for pre-1975 catalogues.  I also don't  know how acsearch has indexed these old catalogues. Are they using bare bones device descriptions in English, full attributions in English (a lot of work) and/or full original language (French, German) attributions from the old catalogue entries. How they go about entering these old catalogues in the database certainly impacts searching strategies.

Good luck with the catalogue bindings! I'm due to see my binder at the end of the month for another exchange. I'm also thinking about adding a new, long and low bookshelf beneath a double window in my office. This location  has the added benefit of keeping the spines protected from the sunlight.

They use OCR, which means in practice it's hardly searchable at all. They do seem to have manually corrected some, or perhaps the OCR worked better on some volumes than others. Even when the description is good there's often still nothing consistent you can search on.

Example of a reasonably well OCR'd description:

321 Herknieskopf r. Rv. P - LENT *P*F· (L-N) Thronender Genius populi Romani mit Füllhorn u. Szepter, von Viktoria bekränzt. B. 58. (Fcs. 40.—) Vorz. Abbildung Tafel IV.

Let me know what Crawford number you think this is! Once you've worked it out, try thinking how you might search for it.

Example of a less well OCR'd description:

♦>1314 Nonîa. M. Nonius Sufenas. Denar. Kopf des Saturnus r. Rv. Roma auf Waffen r, sitzend, wird von Victoria gekrönt. B. 1. F. d. c. Tafel 23 i · _ r\ i3 r' :i : Tr „· r ; „. „ τλ---------- r/- — c j a 11 _ λ r . · — r _ ..

A family name search on Nonia would capture this, but not many others. So in practice, for each catalogue I look for the Republican section and then browse the pictures, as if I had the catalogue in hand. It still has the major advantage that browsing enlarged pictures on a screen is a lot easier than browsing a darkened catalogue paper plate. But then the 1000 lot limit kicks in, so for larger sales one is left guessing.

It's still a good, and good value, service, but they need a lot more catalogues and a better way to browse that's not dependant on descriptions. Even if the description of the following was perfectly OCR'd, I doubt it would be recognised by many as being a Crawford 13/1 didrachm, and I can't imagine how one would search even on a perfectly reproduced text

*>12 7,29 Didrachmon mit ROMAAVO ! Bahrf. m. r. c. 1, 22. (Abge- „ „ Vorzüglich bildet T. III, 1) Willers T. II, 1 (dies Ex.) Feiner Stil

So, picture browsing has to be the way to go, and for that, acsearch will need better browsing tools.

Offline Carausius

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #182 on: May 13, 2016, 02:54:34 pm »
For picture browsing, I'd be more inclined to use my actual catalogue (if I had it) or the University of Heidelberg online catalogues (if they had it).  The greatest benefit to acsearch is the search capability, which seems hamstrung for these old catalogues.  I don't see how the search function can improve without a TON of work. You'd have to either fully-translate the descriptions OR add basic denomination and device description to each illustrated coin OR add a modern, standard work reference to each illustrared coin. Ugh...

However, acsearch must have already started this process to some extent beyond mere OCR, as I have gotten occasional hits to old catalogues when I've used descriptive searches (vs. Crawford numbers).

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #183 on: May 13, 2016, 05:00:01 pm »
Quote from: Carausius on May 13, 2016, 02:54:34 pm
For picture browsing, I'd be more inclined to use my actual catalogue (if I had it) or the University of Heidelberg online catalogues (if they had it).  The greatest benefit to acsearch is the search capability, which seems hamstrung for these old catalogues.  I don't see how the search function can improve without a TON of work. You'd have to either fully-translate the descriptions OR add basic denomination and device description to each illustrated coin OR add a modern, standard work reference to each illustrared coin. Ugh...

However, acsearch must have already started this process to some extent beyond mere OCR, as I have gotten occasional hits to old catalogues when I've used descriptive searches (vs. Crawford numbers).

There's a language thesaurus (since a long time back) for numismatic terms. That means when you put in a descriptive search it'll find the German equivalent in the text.

I'm happy to be paying acsearch a sub for extra services considering how many years I've used it for free. But once it becomes a paid for service, expectations climb rapidly; it took me 2 days to run out of catalogues to search and I've a two year subscription. A lot more content and improved browsing capabilities will be quickly needed.

I can verify that, contrary to most expectations, it is a lot easier to browse the acsearch old catalogue listings than the same in Heidelberg. Enlarged images, and the ability to match them beside your own coin make a big difference. It is worth the sub even at its current level of service.

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #184 on: May 14, 2016, 06:43:15 am »
Below aes grave semis is Haeberlin (1910) plate 44, 2, noted as ex Sarti, but also as being missing from the May 1906 Sangiorgi sale of the Sarti collection. Whilst the Haeberlin 1910 provenance is certain, a bit of sleuthing will be needed to pinpoint the coin to the Sarti 1906 sale. The weight of my coin is given by Haeberlin as being 86.5 grams. It isn't, it weighs 71.5 grams. It is surely not a coincidence that Haeberlin reports (but doesn't illustrate) Sarti sale lot 18 as being a semis of the same type weighing ... 71.5 grams. So, I believe my coin is Sarti lot 18, and the misreported weight to Haeberlin caused him to note as "missing in catalogue". I don't have the Sarti catalogue. Or, the pl.44,2 reference was placed beside the wrong coin in the table. Perhaps someone on list has the catalogue and could look up both lot 18 (and its picture, if any) and see whether there's a picture of my coin in the plates (either as lot 18, or as another lot). Evidently there's been a mixup but it would be nice to also be able to add the Sarti lot 18 provenance as definite rather than probable.

Postscript: in the excitement of my finding this provenance I put the coin down somewhere and now I can't locate it. It's probably somewhere soft and safe, as with the time I placed a denarius on the rubber buttons of my remote.

Offline Carausius

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #185 on: May 14, 2016, 06:36:04 pm »
The May 1906 Sangiorgi sale of the Sarti collection is listed in the Fitzwilliam Museum auction catalogue index. If no one on the Forum can help, perhaps Ted Buttrey would assist.  It certainly sounds like an indexing error by Haeberlin.

Great coin!  I hope you find it again.  ;D

Offline Carausius

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #186 on: May 16, 2016, 01:40:02 pm »
Quote from: carthago on May 11, 2016, 11:24:56 pm
the weird thing is that I found my record in a Cahn sale where the plate coin looked exactly as mine, with good surfaces. Note that every imperfection on my coin is visible on the Cahn plate coin, and the strike and edge defects are identical. But this Cahn plate coin has a lot more bad things going on - terrible surfaces, scratches that aren't on mine etc. Yet the Cahn 80 plate where I found my coin had the same coin with apparently perfect surfaces (it was in the RBW library and I found it whilst browsing the Kolbe sale).

I'm not sure what happened. Could printing defects cause these surfaces ... or degradation of the plate ... or, perhaps there was more than one version of the plate, where they messed up or damaged the plaster cast. Really weird anyway.

I just reviewed my hard copy of Cahn 80 and you have to look really close to see the surface issues on the picture, so the picture you posted online looks worse than the original in hand IMHO.  If you were viewing lots in NY, the lights aren't always so great and I would think you could take it for it looking better than it does as a scan (how cool is that though; finding a key provenance while reviewing book lots!).

My guess is that it's a poor plaster cast and your coin is the way it should look.  

I received my copy of Cahn 80 today.  The plate of your coin doesn't look bad with naked eye, but magnified the surfaces look the same as on the acsearch scan.  The only difference is that my plate is a bit darker and lacks the few white spots visible on tbe acseach scan. I still think the surface defects are casting flaws in the plate production.

From my quick inspection, I don't think the Cahn 80 catalogue ever had tissue guards, as there is significant ink bleed from the face of each plate to the rear of the previous plate. There is no sign of old tissue having been removed, and based on the severity of the image bleed, I doubt tissue was ever there.  I suspect the white spots on the acsearch  scan are the result of that image bleed.

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #187 on: May 19, 2016, 08:06:05 am »
This nice coin went unsold in NAC 84, and I bought it afterwards:



Despite it's nice provenance - ex Frank Kovacs coll. (the sale was cited but not the collector name). Today I added more: ex NFA 27 (4 Dec.1991) Roberto Russo coll. = plate coin Sear Imperators 110. Somewhat ironic that NAC missed a Russo collection coin, especially as NFA 27 is a sale renowned for exceptionally high quality coins; this my second coin from that sale, my other, also bought unprovenanced, is this nice dolphin rider:


Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #188 on: May 19, 2016, 09:53:21 am »
I'm on a roll today.



Knobloch coll., Stack's (3 May 1978) lot 331 (already known to me)

Signorelli coll., Santamaria (4 Jun.1952) lot 638 (new find today, and my third Signorelli coin).

... and



Brunacci coll., Santamaria (24 Feb.1958) lot 59 (new find, my second Brunacci coin)

Offline Carausius

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #189 on: May 19, 2016, 10:42:48 am »
Great finds, Andrew. I'm surprised that Macer didn't sell in NAC 84.

 Last week, I was perusing my collection of Munzen und Medaillen catalogues  looking for coins in an upcoming European auction.  Quite unexpectedly, I found the following, distinctive U.S. auction lot in MuM 38 ( 1968). Voila!  Voirol!    I won the lot .




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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #190 on: May 19, 2016, 01:18:25 pm »
This may be a good time to ask me for lottery number recommendations. I just hit another great provenance



H.C. Levis collection, Naville Ars Classica, 18 June 1925 lot 18.

So far today I've scored a Levis, a Brunacci, a Signorelli and a Russo, hot on the heels of a Sarti yesterday.

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #191 on: May 19, 2016, 10:08:09 pm »
Quote from: Carausius on May 19, 2016, 10:42:48 am
Great finds, Andrew. I'm surprised that Macer didn't sell in NAC 84.

 Last week, I was perusing my collection of Munzen und Medaillen catalogues  looking for coins in an upcoming European auction.  Quite unexpectedly, I found the following, distinctive U.S. auction lot in MuM 38 ( 1968). Voila!  Voirol!    I won the lot .


Great find Michael - it's very troublesome to provenance tiny, anonymous coins (I expect this also happens with Greek fractions) and whilst I've a few anonymous sestertii that need provenancing, I've found none; also have a low percentage success with quinarii probably for the same reasons. These coins were produced in vast quantities around the 212 BC period, and then presumably lost, so there are many more dies than one would suspect and the types are less uncommon than one expects. So finding matches is tough!

I found another provenance from Ars Classica XI H.C.Levis collection, lot 214 a dupondius of Octavian. Interesting that in the black and white plaster cast pic, the coin looks considerably better than in my photo - it has a heavy mottled green patina that has been cleaned carefully to reveal a lot of detail (purists might consider it smoothed but I think the cleaner did his best to reveal an essentially great coin under a lot of covering) but the camouflage pattern obscures it in a colour version. Naville rated it as Superbe; I wouldn't go that far but it's a nice coin and I kind of waive my usual fussiness re overcleaning when it comes to a 1925 first rate provenance.

Now here is a curious thing. Both coins were available in the acsearch search that I concluded a few days ago. Yet I didn't find them, even though I must have looked closely. Also I've owned this sale - and the others I checked and found coins in today - for many years. So I'm obviously perplexed by my provenance blindness in not seeing these rather obvious matches until today, and now I wonder how efficient my acsearch browse has been after all!

I attach the two plate images below.

Offline Carausius

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #192 on: May 19, 2016, 10:33:02 pm »
Andrew,

If you're interested in such trivia, my hand-priced copy of Ars Classica XI - Levis says: your Lot 15 sold for 105 francs; and your Lot 214 sold for 21 francs.

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #193 on: May 19, 2016, 10:39:54 pm »
Quote from: Carausius on May 19, 2016, 10:33:02 pm
Andrew,

If you're interested in such trivia, my hand-priced copy of Ars Classica XI - Levis says: your Lot 15 sold for 105 francs; and your Lot 214 sold for 21 francs.

Added to my database! I often find that post-war CHF prices have barely changed til today, with 1970s sales often priced not much lower for mid-grade coins - symptom of a zero-inflation currency dating back decades - but those pre-war prices are massively cheaper than either would fetch today.

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #194 on: May 22, 2016, 12:12:54 am »
In December I noted the below-pictured cistophorus as being ex V.J.E. Ryan collection, Glendinings 1952. Today I found it also in Schulman 5th March 1923, collection of M.L. Vierordt from Bloemendaal. This is my first Vierordt coin and my 29th pre-war provenance.

I also acquired (via a gift) Santamaria XXI, 31 January 1921, 12 plates of Aes Grave and a key catalogue missing from my Spring list. Alas no provenances. Also a good quality bound photocopy of Santamaria 25 October 1951 which contains the Aes Grave from the Signorelli collection. Also no provenances.

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #195 on: June 01, 2016, 10:21:12 am »
I bought an incomplete run of Spink Numismatic Circulars from 1974-1997 today, off the shelves in Antiquariaat Kok in Amsterdam, for provenance checks. Twenty volumes (missing 4 odd years). They were listed at €35 each but we agreed on €25 per volume plus shipping to UK (just €60 extra). Each Num.Circ. year contains 10 issues of the Numismatic Circular. A random check through a couple of dozen individual issues averaged 15-20 illustrated Roman Republican coins per issue, so 3,000-4,000 illustrated RR in total over 20 volumes, all good quality - typical of a part 2 NAC sale with occasional better pieces. All volumes are nicely hard-bound. There are also scholarly articles in each issue, of at least as good quality as the Celator, so this really adds to the find. Those who know what provenance-quality catalogues normally cost will recognise this as a steal. What's more, these are relatively scarce. Kok also had later and earlier issues. The later volumes had markedly fewer coins and of lower quality, reflecting no doubt the dominance of CNG/Seaby and NAC from the mid 1990s onwards, and are hardly worth getting. Before the mid 1960s the volumes did not illustrate coins for sale - only the academic articles. 1967-1973 were missing; at some point Spink changed from unillustrated to fully illustrated in that time. Kok is a well know numismatic bookseller that I've bought from many times and whilst all its stock is listed on Abebooks, nothing beats shelf-browsing, nor could I have achieved such a substantial discount on the internet. You have to ask for the numismatic books when you go in the shop; they'll take your bags away and send you to the top floor to browse alone. Many other related interesting topics on the same floor such as antiquities and ancient history. Recommended stop-in for anyone visiting Amsterdam. My sample browse unearthed one provenance, of a coin I bought retail from Spink in the late 1990s, listed in a late 1980s Circular (much better!).

Offline Carausius

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #196 on: June 01, 2016, 10:37:06 am »
Great find and a great price. I'm sure I've seen some of these advertised for sale recently. I wish I could remember where!

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #197 on: June 07, 2016, 06:22:47 am »
I just completed my provenance searches of the CNG electronic resources (web-shop, online auctions and printed auctions). I've also via issuu.com searched all the early printed catalogues from CNA I, early Tritons, and the more recent CNR. For completeness sake I'd note that I still miss e-auctions prior to sale 50, presumably vanished into the ether, as well as the unillustrated web coins in the two or three printed sales whilst CNG was transitioning from fully printed to printed + esales. Whilst fresh in my mind, here is what I learnt

- the webshop can easily be searched using denominations. One finds that regardless of the search, results are presented divided into Greek, Provincial, Republican and Imperial, so you can just go to the section relevant to you. And within the presentation, results are ordered in an approximately normal manner as one would expect in a single sale listing, with a few errors. I haven't discovered how this is done as it's not evidently based on any single text attribute such as date, but I presume the coins are all categorised in some manner and that categorisation leads to an automatic normal sequence, the errors being where despite a correct actual description the coin was placed in the wrong box, e.g. some L.Piso Frugi and C.Piso Frugis are misplaced. I guess we really don't need to know but it is very convenient, and even works for Greek denominations since "didrachm" has a Roman Republican results sub-section.

- the eauctions can be searched by sequentially searching from 50 to 375, and scrolling through until you find the relevant section e.g. Roman Republican in each case. Results are backward ordered, but as soon as you get used to it, it's fine. For sales 50-99 you'll also pick up via the same search the relevant printed sales with the same number

- printed sales are all on issuu.com, with as I mentioned an exception for the early CNRs.

- the eauctions reveal a great deal about how prices have changed in the last 15 years. There was a jump in 2006-2007 (not coincident but just before the financial crash) and then another jump in 2011 - coincident in my area with the RBW sales. From about 2012 odd specialised coins e.g. unusual overstrikes, rare but worn varieties, saw a significant boost. I believe this is due to some specific collector on the market. The 2006-2007 jump inordinately affected better quality coins and some common but collector-desired types such as Caesar elephant denarii, but all types were affected to a degree. The 2011-2012 jump especially affected both better quality and unusual variety types, provided the latter were basically problem free.

- the eauctions are almost entirely composed of coins with at least one or more problems - could be surfaces, wear, offstrikes or bad dies. One almost never sees an all-round good coin in an eauction. The content of earlier eauctions varied wildly - perhaps all Greek in one sale and mostly Imperial in the next - but in the last five years they've settled down into standard sizes and proportions between all eras. However once in a while there is a special sale in one or other area, usually by a named person, such as Karl Sifferman, RBW duplicates, Professor Fontana - and in such cases one sees quite large runs of untypically nice coins.

- the web shop, in contrast, typically has problem free coins but of common types. These are invariably printed auction quality pieces but to list them as such would likely glut the market. So we have multiple anonymous 38/7 semunciae, Caesar elephants, Piso Frugi, Cassius tripods etc., listed one at a time. Makes sense. There are no dates on the web shop items but maybe CNG woud know.

- Whilst I picked up great numbers of good provenances from the printed sales, I drew a complete blank on the web shop despite the good quality coins, and almost a complete blank on the esales. Of course I found the coins I'd purchased in those venues but nothing else. I put that down to these venues being invariably "full retail pricing" and therefore unattractive to dealers looking to flip a coin to me later. Indeed if you want to get a sense of what normal retail pricing has been over the years, CNG eauctions are a good place to consult; results are very consistent for the same types at a given period.

I leave you with a picture of the one surprise provenance I did pick up:



Purchased by me in 2014
CNG e250 (23 Feb. 2011) lot 250
Bank Leu - Spink - NAC Ceresio 3 sale (3 Oct.1992) lot 154

(can you imagine Leu, Spink and NAC collaborating on a sale?)

Offline Jordan Montgomery

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #198 on: June 07, 2016, 10:40:48 am »
I realize this isn't an old auction catalog in the sense of the thread title but thought I'd share an interesting provenance find that I made recently. I happened to be looking at Wildwinds and found a provenance record(from an eBay seller in 2004) for the Minucia denarius posted below. It isn't rare nor in very high grade so it was a nice surprise to find any verifiable provenance, even if it doesn't go terribly far back. I'm going to try to go back later this week and run through all of Wildwinds' Roman Republican coins to see if I can find any others
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Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Old Auction Catalogue Madness!
« Reply #199 on: June 07, 2016, 11:16:14 am »
I realize this isn't an old auction catalog in the sense of the thread title but thought I'd share an interesting provenance find that I made recently. I happened to be looking at Wildwinds and found a provenance record(from an eBay seller in 2004) for the Minucia denarius posted below. It isn't rare nor in very high grade so it was a nice surprise to find any verifiable provenance, even if it doesn't go terribly far back. I'm going to try to go back later this week and run through all of Wildwinds' Roman Republican coins to see if I can find any others

Good tip, and yes it is on-topic as the thread also includes online resources! I'd forgotten about this - Wildwinds scraped data from eBay for many years, and thus listings which are long offline may be recorded there. You've got an actual date (7th Feb.2004) and you can add "cited on Wildwinds, Minucia 9 example 1". Or if you want to omit any ebay reference in the future you could write "Wildwinds.com Minucia 9 example 1 (this coin), February 2004". Unless you've got the original WCNC ticket, it's rather pointless directly citing an ebay provenance that cannot be verified. So I'd tend to cite Wildwinds as the main, verifiable provenance, and if you want to put (WCNC, Feb.2004) do so in brackets after the Wildwinds ref.

 

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