Coin Collecting BEFORE internet...

Thank you, Warren.

 

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I love the coin reference books I own but I think I have learned more practical information from Warren's website: http://augustuscoins.com/ed/
Thank you for all you have done for new collectors.

 

I also learned a lot from my books and auction/sales catalogs but wonder what will happen to them now. Few people would take what I have for the cost of the postage (they weigh a lot!). Today with huge resources like the CNG archives and the recent postings of major museums that are searchable, I am less certain of the continued value of my stack of Alex Malloy catalogs (interesting coins but lousy photos on poor paper) and a good number of lesser dealers from the last century. They may be of interest to people seeking provenances of those coins but the type information I got from them is easier to find online today. Many of my catalogs have a coded note on the cover telling me that it contained a legionary Septimius or an Eastern Domna, for example. Today we can do a search and find a hundred of what I may have had a dozen. I am also concerned if the great info we have online today will survive the lifetime of the auction houses. For that matter, will the British Museum and ANS online resources remain 'up' in a hundred years or will they move away from coins like the Smithsonian did. Paper copies do not require a constant stream of electricity and paid staff to keep them in existence.

 

I think we're fine going digital.. if its an apocalypse you're worried about well then we will have a few other things to consider... and paper probably won't save us.

 

You're probably right, but I'm still hanging on to a few "how to do things from the ground up" books in case online info gets destroyed or corrupted. Other people have the Foxfire books and so forth; I've got The Art of Electronics, a book or two on building scientific apparatus, and a bunch of "how things work" references. I dearly hope most of them are useful for nothing more than collecting dust during my and my descendants' lifetimes.

 

Americans........ do you ever look outward?

 

You mean through the slits in our bunkers?

I'm all about the future, and where we (humanity, not any particular country) can take ourselves. I don't know whether that's caused me to be a science and tech geek, or whether it's the other way around.

But I've lived through quite a few rounds of media formats falling into disuse and inaccessibility, and I've watched huge online repositories disappear at the whim of a site owner, or through simple neglect. Yeah, I've lost or damaged books, too -- but, on the whole, my 40-year-old books are a lot easier to get to than my 40-year-old data.

 

That's quite an interesting history. I actually retired from the practice of law myself in December 2019, even though I hadn't yet reached the age of 65. Long story, but suffice it to say that almost 40 years of being a lawyer was more than enough for me, especially given that I never really wanted to be one very much, and never loved doing it -- especially during the last decade, when my boss at my last law firm job became more and more verbally abusive, and I finally quit. Now, I mostly rely on Social Security payments and my moderate savings (also a long story!) -- which I try not to deplete too much by buying coins and antiquities! But I get plenty of enjoyment from my various interests, and, of course, from seeing my son and talking to him when I can't see him.

 

I know it's neither perfect nor all-encompassing, especially in preserving comment archives for defunct blogs and message board websites, but I'm sometimes amazed at how much I'm able to find through the Wayback Machine. Whether it, or its equivalent, will still be around 100 years or 500 years from now, as books and libraries have been, is another story, but one I won't be here to see.

 

The Wayback Machine is a new thing under the sun. But it's a nonprofit effort, and WAY too huge to back up onto a few external drives if the owner can't pay the bills and a provider decides to pull the plug.

I spent close to ten years on a Macintosh discussion forum, where there was LOTS of outstanding technical information and expertise. There was also a lot of chatter and bickering. One day, the parent site apparently decided they were bored with it, and just shut the whole forum down. No warning, no time to find and copy good stuff, it was just gone. The Wayback machine has snapshots of the contents page, and occasional threads, but there's no way archive.org can keep up with all the forums and discussions on the Internet.

But it must cost many thousands of dollars a day for bandwidth to feed archive.org's maw, and to keep it in mass storage -- not to mention legal fees. It's a resource of such value that nation-states should be collaborating to protect and support it. But I'm afraid one copyright troll could bring the whole thing crashing down.

 

Don't know if this question fits into this thread, if it doesn't my apologies:

I have been noticing that some CT members post messages with coin pictures but then delete the pictures, which is somehow frustrating because the message without the picture is quite useless, at least for me.

Is there a reason that I don't know of, to delete the pictures? safety? I am really puzzled...

 

I'm not sure that people deliberately delete photos that much. Sometimes, when a photo comes from somewhere else on the Internet (instead of being uploaded from a person's own computer), the link becomes broken and doesn't work anymore, so the photo disappears. Plus right now there's a thread about the fact that the feature allowing you to post photos from other sites doesn't work at all at the moment, so none of the photos posted that way are showing up currently.

 

Thanks @DonnaML for your input.

One can see several deleted in=mages in this thread: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/brutal-scenes-on-ancient-coins.333826/

of course I don't know if the images came from other sites.
I have seen this happening for a while also on the German numismatic forum.

 

I understand in other threads that this has been discussed. Moderators have stated the owner is aware, and it is being worked on.

 

The only non-visible photos in that thread are the ones posted by @Cucumbor. He must have linked them from another site. According to what I've read about the current problem, you can actually still see these photos if you hit "reply" on each of his posts containing them, and look down at the reply preview.

 

Thanks @DonnaML for pointing that out. Most of my images come from my gallery at FAC and there's been no problem so far to hosting them here. Some change in the software on either side maybe ?

Probably the Gods at CT can give some explanation (@GDJMSP, @lordmarcovan or @Peter T Davis please)

Anyway that sucks

Q

 

I read in another thread that the problem is being worked on. I hope it's fixed soon, so we can all see your wonderful coins again!

 

Ten days in law school did it for me. That was 1975.

I just wasn't cut out for the "paper chase". So, I dropped out, bought a 1965 Mustang and cruised up Highway 1 from LA to the San Francisco Bay Area, where my brother lived at the time. I eventually sold the car and flew back to Detroit. Big mistake. I should have driven back to Motown. I wasn't thinking too clearly back then, or even now.

 

From my parents, to coin and hobby shops, to the internet. Oh, can't forget Numismatic Coin Shows. Good post, thanks.