A fantastic new ressource for PROVENANCE:rnumis.com

I’d like to let you know about a fantastic new tool created by Steve Moulding (in his spare time !). For the past 10 years, he is working on an online project called rnumis ( the « r » obviously meaning « research » »). The first section of this site is an online database of historical numismatic auctions. It actually covers 4858 sales by 173 different auction houses from 1844-2022. There are a few summary details for each sale and for many - but especially those with antique pieces - it provides links to all online versions of the auction catalog known. It also indicates if the catalogs (real or digitized) are in Steve’s personal library. (if someone is looking for a particular lot description or image -he’d be happy to help).





And example of what you’ll find if you click on an auction’s house:




The second section of rnumis is designed for Provenance exploration for the Ancient Greek coins of Italy and Sicily. The primary aim is to be able to easily check whether a coin in hand has appeared in older auctions using as little information as possible. It has been a long term goal of his for many years. Different from other auction research sites, it cover much older sales and searches can be filtered by four parameters: Region, Issuer, Metal and Weight (the weight window can be adjusted to increase the hit chance). In cases where a provenance is known (or later found), they tie connected appearances together in a Provenance Chain. So far almost 8000 lots have been entered in the database but the goal is to reach around 25,000 records, which would constitute a reasonable Italy/Sicily inventory. According to Dr. Moulding, there is no reason why the databases couldn't be extended and the same ideas applied to Roman Coins or just about anything else.



An example of a « chain » Provenance:


HOW CAN WE HELP ? Let’s see what Steve has to answer: I think what I'd really like is for people to know about it, see it, and play with the different functions to see what they find useful. Out of that I'd *hope* some people would naturally see more possibilities - how it's like nothing currently available, how it can be used, and how it could be extended.
There is the possibility that one day in the future the project becomes more collaborative and interested people can reference tag by themselves. In the meantime, we all can become involved by talking about the site, trying it and posting our comments here in this thread or directly on rnumis.com. Steve is not yet a member here (but I’m working on that), but he assured me he’ll be reading all your comments and suggestions.

 

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Fascinating @Ocatarinetabellatchitchix - thanks for the share.

 

Thank you; this is an amazing resource. If the search function could ever be extended to Roman coins -- which probably won't happen in my lifetime! -- it would exponentially expand the ability to find old provenances from more than 20 years ago (the general limit of resources like acsearch). Right now, one has to go through old catalogs page by page looking for matches, whether on this website or on places like the Newman Numismatic Portal, and I simply don't have the patience for that!

 

Thanks for all the excellent info

 

I totally love this. Magna Grecia area coins are one of my core collecting areas, so this will really help me. I'll definitely check this site out!

 

Just imagining the gigantic quantity of work and research needed, the only possibility would be that dozens of people get involved. Will a mega collaborative project be created one day in the near future ? I will retire only in 14 years, and in the meantime my free time is rather scarce…

 

A great resource - great to be able to find a catalog quickly to verify a coin. now if only all those catalogs had the individual coins searchable in ACSearch of Ex-numis.....

 

Very good project. I saw on another site how you find 100 years old pedigree for a coin. Good job.