As your ancient coin knowledge increases and your collection expands, do you review and revise your coin attributions to fix errors or innaccuracies that could've arised? do you do this intentionally or just "happen to notice it"?
I make a mental note to correct the flip (and my website, if it is on there), and then promptly misplace that mental note . Somewhere I have a written list started... if only I can remember where...
I have received messages about incorrect attributions before here at CoinTalk and I just update my catalog. I'm not very concenred about references since I don't own any, but I do note them. Also I'm always grateful when someone notices I got something wrong and lets me know!
I have an ongoing "journal" on my phone where I record new provenances and other things(like an overstrike I finally noticed a few weeks ago). Every few weeks I'll sit down and update all the sources(personal notes, website, etc) and then usually write out a new envelope and replace the old ones next time I'm at the bank. Occasionally something gets missed but it usually works.
I never take the attribution from a website or auction house at face value. I always check the references in my own collection against the source I am researching. I have found many errors that way. I am always checking the references. My collection is up to date regarding RIC, but I still need to add RSC and BMCRE for some coins. I also find it interesting to find which coins are not in certain references. For example I have several coins that are not in BMCRE or RSC or the early RIC. I have a few that only appear in the updated RIC II Part 1 (2007). Another reason I always check the reference is that I have found some great rarities that way. With the coins of Domitian for example, misattributions are very common. The misattribution can result in finding out that a coin thought common is actually quite rare. I have of course found the opposite as well-an auction misattributes a coin as a rare type when in fact it is quite common. I have found that owning the references is a very good investment.
I try to take great pains to attribute the coins properly when I acquire them and I own BMCRE, RIC and Sear. However, there are times when I have noticed upon revisiting a coin, that I mistook one reverse type for another or had misattributed a Roman provincial coin. I don't purposely go through my collection to double check everything; I stumble across these errors by chance.
As with everyone else, I find errors all the time - or others helpfully point out incorrect attributions to me. I don't systematically revisit coins, but if I take new photos or rearrange them and write a new tag, I'll check what I had for them. Pretty much every time I check more than ten coins or so, I'll find something that can be improved. ATB, Aidan.
When I first started to attribute my coins, I thought that once I finished I could put my collection to rest. No way! Every day I read some message on CT that makes me check and review my attributions, and of course I find mistakes I made. I also had to weigh again all of them, because when I first got my scale I didn't calibrate it - the seller said it was already calibrated. After a while the battery died and after replacing it, I used peppercorns from a container that was labeled as 200 g. to calibrate the scale. As I had my suspicions that this was not very accurate, i bought a 200 g weigh, so I had to start all over. And there is the picture part - I have not finished taking pictures of all the coins. And for each picture I take, I review the attribution. Finally, when I buy or win a coin, I check the attribution given by the seller. In short, I have been reviewing iteratively my attributions since I started, and it seems this is a never ending process, though I have a lot of fun and have learned a lot doing it.
I recently got a new, more comprehensive catalogue for ancient Chinese coins. That means I have to update all of my attributions and catalogue numbers.
Sometimes but not always. If I am working in a particular area of my collection and I find new information or new reference book, I will do it. But sometimes I won't. Recently I got the Volume 1 of the Handbook on Greek coins by Hoover. I found that two of my coins were plated sooooo I changed the reference right away. 1.Metapontion Nomos HGC 1064 My coin illustrated 2. Metapontion Nomos HGC 1067 My coin illustrated Eventually I will get to the rest
I've made plenty of attribution mistakes over the years. Not as many now as when I first started with uncleaned coins, of course, but I still mislabel things now and then. Whenever I, or someone else, discovers a mistake, I make the correction. Part of the fun of an ancient coin is knowing its history. The more accurate information that I have about it, the better.
I find two kinds of errors with regularity. First are things I did wrong and should not have. Those I fix as soon as I can. Second are changes caused by either a new book or a book new to me. It is hard to keep up with, for example, new attributions for some Parthian coins than have been shown to be other than shown in Sellwood or Shore. Those take longer. I also am slow to 'correct' spellings to be consistent when some references use one transliteration and others another. For example Sasanian Khusro, Khosrow, Chrosoes, Husro and Xusro are all the same name depending on where you look. The goal is the journey. We have fun along the way and ignore those who think they have all the answers in our hobby based on minutia. You have to play differently when dealing with school classes at least until you pass that course and move on to other teachers who will want you to spell things their way. Eventually you find the only consistency in science is change. Today's facts have a way of turning into tomorrow's outdated theories to be ridiculed by those who think they have the final answer.
