I love the OCRE "Identify a coin" subpage - trying to search parts of the legend to identify coins. https://numismatics.org/ocre/ I used it for almost all the Imperial coins I have. But since last evening it appears the page is down? ..... Normally this indicates a problem with the websites, not on my end but I had cases where certain pages worked OK with a VPN. Before trying to mess around, could somebody please confirm the resource is available?
1 minute later and the sub-page is not available. Could be they are updating or maintaining that page. All other links work
@expat - the "Identify a coin" link? the main page works for me too but I mean that particular section Edit - posted in the same time. I noticed it was down last evening (18 hours ago for me). Strange.
Checked now and the resource is back online. For me it was (and will still be) a great tool to identify coins and I am very glad it's available again. I wasn't sure if it was a technical issue or the website owners decided to decommission it.
The site owners are the American Numismatic Society. I am a member. If you like the resources they provide, consider joining. If you are on the fence about joining let me know and I will try to convince you that it is worthwhile to become a member. https://numismatics.org/membership/
I heard they have taken a problematic attitude towards cultural property MOUs lately. Any comments on that? Some details and links: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/ans-news.394278/
I see no evidence they have departed from their 2005 position, which is still on their web site. https://numismatics.org/governance/cultural-property-statement/ The ANS wants to work with both collectors and the museum/academic community. That requires them to see both sides of the discussion. It is unclear if a middle-of-the-road position will be accepted by either extreme in the age of social media.
The thread forwarded essentially has the refutation already laid out if one reads in its entirety. The ANS cultural property statement linked by Ed also has a detailed bibliography about legal and ethical issues in numismatics, which would be a good starting point for folks on this board to learn a bit more about the issues. Most of the items are hardcopy books, so it may take an actual library trip or a few e-books to be a cost-effective way of becoming better informed about the issues, regardless of where one starts or ends up on the topics. Another take, far less academic and more accessible, is Bogdanos, Thieves of Baghdad (2005). People have strong feelings about the author (which you can save for yourselves as a pointless exercise on an internet board), but it is a fascinating story.
