What drives me nuts

We all have our pet peeves. Here's one of mine. When a firm that sells middling quality coins, and with zero heritage or track records, decides to produce its catalogues in the most expensive possible hardback, complete with dust jacket and little ribbon for page marker. Here's why I have a beef about it: vendors have no idea what practical use we make of their catalogues, and softcover catalogues allows me the flexibility to choose. For me, assuming I want the coins within, I do one of several things

• I travel with the catalogue perhaps to their sale. But not with a multi kilogram hardback
• I disassemble the catalogue just to conveniently work on a slim set of pages covering only the coins I am interested in. But I cannot do this with a hardback which would need a pneumatic drill to break it up
• I have started creating a card file of individual coins from otherwise large catalogues, on A7 cards, akin to that in the ANS. Yes, I can do this with hardback pages but what value is the binding?
• I take numbers of catalogues in a given series, fillet them to extract only the pages that interest me, and then bind that series into a new book. That's virtually impossible when I start with a hardback - one cannot disassemble into the quires of paper needed to rebind
• I sit with the catalogue in an easy chair in the evening and leaf through and make notes. This just becomes more difficult when the bulk and weight is augmented so much through a hardcover.
• For classic catalogues such as 1930s Cahn sales I do indeed bind them hardback but in groups, so for example my Cahn 66 68 71 and 75, four sensible soft backs from the 1930S, are bound together. But one cannot do that if the starting point is a hardback as you'll wreck the contents!
• But the single most common action I take with a catalogue produced in 2019 is to bin it (paper recycle), and generally I don't encourage firms to send me printed catalogues, unless from a landmark sale in my own interest area. I value classic catalogues tremendously and have built a substantial library to house them but anything dated 2019 .. nope.

The hardback catalogue I'm upset with today comes from a firm that didn't exist until a couple of years ago, who then swiped the name of a respected old numismatic firm to pretend they have an association with them but without any relationship, even a commercial one, with the old brand. Coins within are all so-so. I have never bought a coin from this firm and I have never registered or provided them with my details. Yet four times in a row they have sent me this ultra expensively produced brick which heads straight off to recycle. Should I register with this firm just to tell them to stop sending me things?

What drives you nuts?

 

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Call them and tell them NO.

 

Just write and ask them to take you off their catalog list.

I've grown less fond of catalogs because of the problem of storage. Older catalogs (pre-internet) are always welcome though.

 

No, your name as a past buyer of thousands of high dollar coins is a valuable item. Don't it get to you and continue filling the rubbish bin or give the tings to people you know who might enjoy them. I am bothered more by the idea they are promoting that junk coins can be promoted to museum specimens by publishing a glossy catalog. I do not care for your idea of cutting up old catalogs and throwing out all the coins I am interested it. When you are gone, will your clip art be considered a valuable reference auctioned for high price along with your coins or will it go straight to the rubbish heap with the rest? It makes no difference to those of us who have departed.

I am more bothered now by my mixed feelings about nice catalogs I have but that are duplicated online in a format I like better since it is searchable and images are enlargeable. I got one in the mail yesterday that duplicates the coins I have seen online a few days ago so I already knew what I found interesting inside before I opened it. Meanwhile my boxes of catalogs grows but not as quickly as it did when they were the only way to see the offerings. Also, I still make a 3x5 card for each new coin I buy but I use them out of long standing habit as much as anything. I am a dinosaur and I know it.

 

Whew! I didn't even know companies made catalogs. Guess I'm not on anybody's mailing list since I haven't bought any coins from them. Probably a good thing as I barely have room for my coin albums, lol.

 

Good reply Doug. It's a complex issue. Substantial card files reputedly sell for very high prices. Yes it also probably bothers me most that the firm thinks by hype (a pilfered name, a nice binding) they can promote ordinary coins to museum quality. I have been reluctant to get in touch because I don't wish them to also start spamming me by email. As a researcher with a practical research library I need to be very practical and not sentimental about the reams of paper that come through my door daily. That sometimes means a scissors is a key tool.

 

I once considered making a clip file to lighten the load of mostly worthless catalogs but with my luck the two coins I liked were back to back on the same sheet. I have quite a few catalogs with a code on the cover telling me what is inside that made me keep the whole thing. "1JD", for example, meant there was a Domna coin with her first legend. I stopped doing it when I realized that I was not going to do a serious die study.

 

Some time ago I said in CT that the contents of the catalogues aren't worth the paper they are printed on and I got attacked...

With respect to how they got your contacts, the owner left from nomos and took a copy of the clientele on his way out

 

Just call and remove your name or when the next catalog arrives don't open the box, write refused on the outside above your address and give it back to the post office.

 

In this 'new age' we live in everyone is buying and selling information. I get catalogs and e-mails from many firms I have never heard of. It will only get worse as time goes on.

I do like paper catalogs. I find them easier to peruse than online sites, and I often find coins of interest only because I did take the time to look page by printed page. I no longer keep them, but I do save them and periodically give them away to members here.

 

I collect catalogues and actively seek them out when a coin I have bought appears. I like having the paper trail and proof of provenance for my coins. I do not keep catalogues if no coins of mine appear.

 

Aw, man. I was hoping to find a pirate joke in this thread.

I haven't been active with actual auction firms long enough to accumulate more than a few of these. They usually get a flip through then go on the book shelf. I will very likely goodwill them or just recycle them when I do eventually get around to cleaning my office. I prefer auction databases - "You can't grep dead trees" so they say.

My pet peeves with auction houses? I once bought a lot of mostly collectible coins (Classic US commemoratives) from a large and reputable auction house: "Lot of xx mostly silver US coins" Description gave the highlights and ended with "among others". The "others" were a pile of literal pocket change (some circulated ATB quarters, a few 2004-2005 nickels, and a circulated 1972 half dollar) tossed in there to bump the "xx" up to a number they felt would get better bids. I'm not mad because I still hit my profit goal on the resale, but still....

 

I always have to question firms that send me big expensive catalogs simply because the firms
I've spent money with know that I really don't spend a lot on coins. The firm I've spent by far the most money with over the years is CNG and I've only ever received their tiny pamphlet-like fixed price catalogs and one they did for an e-sale some time ago. That's fine with me. My office space is limited so the catalogs that make the shelf are all important pre-internet catalogs. A few more are shelved downstairs but most of the ones I receive in the mail get thrown in the recycling. My photofile is all digital so even some printed but less important catalogs just get scanned in before being sold, given away or recycled.

If a company really wanted to impress me, they'd go all-digital and have people who want them pay for printed catalogs rather than sticking all their customers with a 20% buyers fee for a catalog that isn't worth the shelf space.

 

As someone who's rather inexperienced with auction firms this is new intelligence for me -- I assume the old house is Bank L__ and the new one L__ Numismatik? I'd assumed they were the same without giving any thought to it.

 

Bank Leu then Leu Numismatik AG then LHS which all do not exist any more. The current has to relation to any of these. It's like if CNG liquidates and 10 years later someone registers a new auction house with the same name. They probably got jealous of Naville LOL. Who will start the new glendining?

 

Not to mention the run of coins in their recent auctions pedigreed to "S. Pozzi"... which is not that "S. Pozzi"

Even if that is the consignor's real name, it's another unfortunate layer of deception.

 

1 picture is worth a thousand words

 

I tend to keep paper catalogs that have really good and comprehensive collections within such as BCD and RBW. These can in some cases be as good or even better than some references and the photography is usually much better. There some that I just like and keep them around as well. The biggest problem I find is that I tend to refer to them less and less and on line search engines more and more.

 

I'm surprised that anyone should feel borderline outraged. I really am!

You have to put yourself in their shoes. The average Leu buyer, for a highlight auction like this, is spending thousands of dollars per lot. They pretty much expect the blue ribbon treatment. Here's a similar example... I was sent a new high-falutin' credit card and look how it comes:



How is this not overkill? It comes in an embossed, black manila envelope with the card lovingly placed in the middle of a heavy cardboard with cutout. Oh, and the card itself is made of metal(!!!). Big difference from the Capital One card that comes in a plain envelope yelling at you that if you're a day late they're going to charge you, I dunno, 69% interest and send Bruno over to break your kneecaps! :-D

Personally, I think it's all a waste too meant to fluff you up and make you feel important. On the other hand, if your clientele expects the red carpet treatment and you don't then that means less business. Why would Leu mess with that mentality?

 

I love getting them in the mail, personally. Even though the vast majority of coins are ones I won’t buy I still enjoy reading through the catalogs. I didn’t look at the Romans but they had some treasures in the Greek section. Probably not enough to warrant a hardcover catalog, but some good coins anyhow.