Has anybody on site got any suggestions of what to do with old (late 70's to present) coin auction catalogues? Does anyone buy them for a very modest cost; are there any dealers, collectors or auction houses who would want them? I haven't counted them yet but there must be well over 100 of them, all in fairly good condition. If anybody has any ideas I'd be delighted to hear, it seems a shame to bin them. Thanks in advance.
I know Kolbe & Fanning deal in them among others. They are just who I usually buy from but there are plenty of other dealers out there.
Yes, some book dealers, private collectors, even some coin dealers will buy them. But it's just like it is with everything else - you have to find or happen to run across just the right person, somebody who actually wants the ones you have. Book dealers are probably your best bet.
A few things can be key with catalogs. 1) hard bound usually brings a premium, 2) a known name of a person, numismatic or general, helps, e.g Eliasberg or John Ford, or 3) a particularly famous coin sold, such as any 1913 Liberty nickel or other milestone, such as a $1million piece. When I moved in October of 2017, I had to do a tough edit.
Three steps: 1. Scan them into your computer. 2. Upload the scans to the Newman Numismatic Portal, if they aren't already there. 3. Send them to be recycled. If that doesn't suit your fancy, offer them for sale on the Marketplace here. Be forewarned, you may have to offer them for free, and still you won't have any takers. There are very few people who want stacks and stacks of ancient coin catalogs. The rest of us would rather have access to a digital copy.
Well this is interesting. I asked what auction houses the catalogs were from and what condition they are in and my response was edited wiping out all of the text. Not sure why
Prob because the way you phrased it was taken as an offer to buy and this is the wrong section for that. Check your messages and email, the mods will have dropped you a note for a first offence
But the reality is your intent doesn't matter because - 1, you're the only one who knows or even can know your intent, and 2, because it could easily be interpreted as such by anybody, including other mods and or other members who would have almost certainly reported it. You should also be made aware, that while I had no idea for sure what your intent was, I did give you the benefit of the doubt and thus only edited your post. As opposed to editing your post and giving you an infraction for it. And I went ahead and edited your post because another mod might not have been as understanding as I was being. So in a way, I kind of did you a favor, because they very well may have given you an infraction for it. So by doing what I did I was trying to make sure that did not happen. The lesson, for everybody, is that you have to be careful how you phrase your comments in cases like this. By their very nature, even questions like those asked by the OP are on the razor's edge of being against the forum rules. And depending upon how they are phrased, the mods have to make decisions as to whether to allow them and let them stand, or edit or remove them.
I too greatly prefer digital copies. Take up less space (essentially none), are instantly available, have great portability, and can easily be searched and sorted. To some extent, the Newman Portal has knocked down the numismatic catalog market. Why buy old catalogs when digital copies are free for downloading? I have a bunch I'd like to sell, but it's not worth the effort. Many sell on eBay for $10 including shipping. I live in the country. The expense of driving to the PO and postage means I'd earn a couple of bucks for more than an hour's effort. So they go to the local library's rummage sales. Check the Newman Portal before going to the trouble of scanning. If it's already in Newman, just download it. Usually, Newman has no need of donations of material. They have full access to the collections of ANS, ANA, Smithsonian, LOC and more. There is not much that a collector might have that they don't already have access to. The biggest problem Newman has is getting copyright releases. The copyrights to some magazines and catalogs have sifted down to some strange owners. For example, copyrights to the Celator belong to V-Hobbies (parent of V-Coins), and copyrights to Bowers and Merena catalogs belong to Collectors Universe. Cal
