I thought I'd start a thread on what we do when we receive new coins. The following is mine: Place the coin in a new flip, since many sellers use cheaper ones. Include any auction cards or previous documentation included with the coin. Add the coin to be Excel spreadsheet. I keep the following information. Title used by the seller The exact description given by the seller An abbreviated description I can copy whenever posting the coin here The seller Date purchased Amount purchased in its original currency. This makes it trickier for me to sum the total costs of my coins, which I really don't want to know. If won at auction, the lot number. The country of the seller If the coin is in my "Philip II, Alexander III, and the Era of the Diadochi" collection, then I do the following Add it to a list of rulers/places I already have Research the ruler/place and add important dates involving it to my consolidated timeline Remove the coin from my list of ones I'm seeking (it had already been marked with an asterisk) Photograph the coin and process the images. Create a write-up of the coin. In the past I stole the text from Wikipedia, but I now must write the entire thing myself, ideally with humor. Print the write-up along with a cutout for the flip. Cutout the spot for the flip and tape it onto the write-up. Place that in a plastic holder and add it to my album. Note that I hope to change this process soon. I have an idea for more efficient storage that I'll discuss in a later post. If the coin is in my "Philip II, Alexander III, and the Era of the Diadochi" collection, do the following. Add a page containing the write-up to my website (will publicize once it's done) Update the index and timeline on the website with the coin The following is an example of a coin with write-up. Cyprus. Citium. Pumiathon Æ Chalkous / Lion16.37mm 2.70g 362-312 BCE Obverse: Lion walking left, ram head above Reverse: Horse standing left, star above, symbol before BMC 69 Ex Marc Breitsprecher Of all the agent Cypriote kings, Pumiathon had in my opinion the best name. It makes me think of a Puma-like robot that vanquishes his enemies. Sadly, Pumiathon wasn’t able to utilize his puma powers, and was killed by Ptolemy I in 312 BCE, making him the last king of Kition. While we don’t have much more information about Pumiathon, there is one interesting situation. At the time of Alexander the Great, there were ten kingdoms in tiny Cyprus. This is a lot for such a small place, and they could practically yell across the street at each other. Kition was one of those kingdoms, as were Amathos (Androkles), Salamis (Pnytagoras), Marion (Stasiochos II), and Paphos (Timarchos). Another was Tamassos. Its king, Pasikypros, must have had a gambling problem, because in order to fulfil his debts he sold his entire kingdom to Pumiathon. It would be extremely cool to own a kingdom. Back when Greece had tremendous financial problems, I suggested to my wife that we buy it, but we didn’t. Of course, Pumiathon already had a kingdom, but it was so small that you could barely go horse-riding before having to return home. This purchase must have doubled his range. I do hope he had time to enjoy it. When he supported Antigonos, which was a fashionable thing to do back then, it royally upset Ptolemy so much that he annihilated Pumiathon and his kingdom. After then, Cyprus was treated as a single entity.
Very nice and an encyclopaedic amount of information. Generally I just leave them in the plastic flips or paper envelope, noting the price paid, any provenance, date. I photograph the coin, save it in the Google cloud, then put them in my storage box. If I don't like the flip used by the dealer/auction house I will put them in a paper envelope.
1st......I dance a little!....It's arrived safely! 2nd.....Wait until early evening, play some cool classical music and open a nice bottle of red.. 3rd......Open the package with shaking hands! 4th......Take the coin out of its holder. 5th......Hold it, feel it and look at it.....Taking in why I actually bought the coin. 6th......Weigh it, check diameter then scrutinize it under a magnifier. 7th......Take photos. 8th......All data entered into the spread sheet. 9th......Put it in a preselected place in my coin cabinet. 10th....Look at it, pick it up and feel it most days for the foreseeable future. Here's my latest... Severus Alexander. 222-235 AD. AR Denarius (3.12 gm, 20mm). Antioch mint. Struck 222 AD. Obv.: IMP C M AVR SEV ALEXAND AVG, laureate and draped bust right. Rev.: P M TR P COS P P, Fortuna standing left holding rudder on globe and cornucopiae; star in left field. RIC 267. gVF.
I have been busy with new arrivals via our mailman. My first reaction is that the coin arrived/ second that it passed thru customs= no customs fees. Third, I carefully open letter /packet to remove slab/ or coin flip from protective cardbord. With TPG slabs/ I will make a data labels/ I print these up in #6 size font on large format packing label paper sheets. For the coins in unsafe flips/ I carefully move them into SAFLIPS/ without touching coin surfaces. Then I print up detailed labels. I keep auction labels/ old provenance material. Here are samples of my labels in size 6 font/ they fit onto slabs/ 2X2 flips.
I open the package/envelope, extract the coin(s), scratch my head as I try to figure out which personality ordered or won this coin. The coin(s) are put into PVC free flips, if needed, and set aside for labels, if they don't have them. The labels are created on a Word template that is populated with text boxes. Once the labels are created, trimmed and inserted into the appropriate flip, the coin is put into a box based on general theme. Since I have so many owls, they have a couple of devoted boxes. The rest of the ancients are in boxes in which they are grouped by empire, city-state or region by date. I have not gone so far as creating a database for the collection, but I hope to do this before they pack my carcass to the landfill. This undertaking (the database, not the transport to the landfill) will be massive in scope, as the collection includes loads of world coins (mostly crowns), but I have a background in database design; I just hope that I remember how to go about designing it.
1. Joy, that I actually received the package. This has always happened. I've never failed to receive a package. I always wonder, if I'll actually receive the package. However, I'm currently waiting for a coin, that was shipped 2 months ago from France. My record was 4 months, for a coin that I ordered from Norway, soon after COVID-19 hit in 2020. That was a painfully long wait. However, I've heard horror stories, of much longer waits. 2. Open the Abafil case, where the coin will go. 3. Put a cardboard box top, upside down, on my desk, to keep the coin from rolling off of my desk (that happened once), if I drop the coin. 4. Put a rubber pad, on top of the cardboard box top. 5. Open the package, while holding the package over the cardboard box top and rubber pad, in case I drop the coin. 6. If there is a coin in the package, and if the correct coin is in the package, then joy again. One time, the package had no coin in it. On 2 occasions, the package had the wrong coin in it. 7. If the coin looks good in hand, then more joy. If the coin doesn't look as good, as the seller photos, then I usually say to myself "I did my best. I did the best, that I knew how to do. I can't help it, if the coin doesn't look as good, as the seller photos. I can always upgrade, if I find a better example." 8. Sometimes, I examine the edge of the coin, for casting seams or file marks. 9. Sometimes, I examine the coin under a microscope, including the edge of the coin, to check for signs of casting or tooling or smoothing. Sometimes, I'll take photos of the coin, under the microscope. 10. If the coin seems like it is probably fake, or probably tooled, or probably smoothed, then I put the coin in my "black cabinet" case, which is a wooden Lighthouse case, with a tray, that is lined with black felt. 11. If the coin seems like it is probably authentic, and probably not tooled, and probably not smoothed, and if the coin is good enough, then I put the coin in the appropriate "1st string" Abafil case. I just put the naked coin, on the velvet tray. 12. If the coin is on the fence, regarding authenticity, or tooling, or smoothing, or if the coin isn't good enough to go into one of my "1st string" Abafil cases, then I put the coin in one of my "2nd string" Abafil cases. 12. Rearrange the coins in the Abafil case, to account for the new coin. 13. Look at the new coin, and all of the coins in the Abafil case, for a while. 14. Keep the paper invoice, if there is one. If not, then download a soft copy of the invoice, if one is available. 15. Wish that I had time, to take photos of the coin. I'm sort of a perfectionist, regarding coin photos, and some other things. Therefore, it takes forever, for me to take photos of a coin. Therefore, I usually only take photos of an individual coin, if I want to post photos of the coin, on CoinTalk or another ancient coin forum. 16. Sometimes, I'll take some quick and dirty photos of the entire coin tray, just so I can look at the photos, while sitting at my desktop computer. 17. On my desktop computer, I have a separate folder, for each coin, that I have. For each coin that I have, I have images of the seller photos, and screen captures of the seller description, and screen captures of most of the purchase transaction, and a text file containing my notes, and images and screen captures of seller photos and seller descriptions of other examples of the coin from ACsearch etc, and any microscope photos, and any individual photos of the coin that I took. 18. I only have approximately 117 "1st string" ancient and medieval coins. I only have approximately 7 probably fake, or probably tooled, or probably smoothed ancient and medieval coins. I only have approximately 20 "2nd string" ancient and medieval coins. Therefore, I don't have any paper cards with information, for my coins. For each coin, I can look up all of the information, on my desktop computer, in the corresponding folder.
I also have a background in databases, but I felt an Excel spreadsheet worked for my needs. The one recommendation I have is - if you want to database your coins - do this sooner rather than later. It was painful getting my spreadsheet up-to-date and I only have ~150 coins! It also took me several weeks to write the ~90 stories for my site. Now that I'm caught up, though, it's not too difficult to add new coins. The one thing I'll probably have to do at some point though is add a unique identifier for each coin. That's trivial to do in the spreadsheet, but I also need it labeled with each coin. If something were to happen to me, my wife and kids would have detailed information about each coin - but they probably won't know which coin belongs to which entry.
Yes, I have some electrum archaic coinage/ also debased gold Kashmir/ Kidarites. And....quite a few Roman AR Denari/ Ants a cheaper method of getting MS coins from guys like Balbinus/ Pupeinus/ Macrinus/ Gordian I/ II/ etc.
If I am not mistaken, but Excel can create a column of cells that are autonumbered, so each record would have a unique identifier. As I recall, there is a way to create a form in Excel that can extract specific fields, but I am now far removed from my years developing reports for the county health and hospital system, so I'm quite rusty now. When I was working, I was much more involved with Access, which allows the creation of a key field, and then a one-to-one relationships or a one-to-many relationship. Then, forms can be created with queries to refine the data and create reports. They can also be used as search engines for specific needs. I never got as far as linking records to photos, which would be nice, but not absolutely necessary. Yes, I have so many coins, it will take ages to enter information into even a simple, basic database. Maybe it is time to whittle down the number of coins.
1. Rejoice the parcel arrived 2. Examine carefully if it's the right coin or if I've missed any details when buying it online. 3. Feel the coin with my grubby fingers 4. If the coin is a budget example with gunk or uneven tarnish, then I clean it with some acetone or baking soda. (Thiosulfate bath if it has horn silvering). 5. If the coin is expensive or looks fragile then I don't mess with it, goes straight into my folder. 6. I try to take photos, I still haven't standardized it, (some coins look good under sunlight, some under diffused light, some held at certain angle in hand). 7. or just use the seller's image if I couldn't take a better one. 8. Try to properly attribute the coin if the seller did not provide it or I feel if they've miss attributed the coin. 9. Upload the coin to my online database on Forum Ancient coins. 10. Upload the date of the purchase and the cost of the coin including postage in Australian dollars on excel 10. Share it on CT
Yeah. The key field is the trivial part. The difficult part is updating the write-ups with the new ID for the coin. I could just write the ID by hand on each sheet, though that wouldn't look great. The alternative is to reprint each sheet and re-tape the flip onto the new page, which would be a royal pain even for ~150 coins. I'm in the process of designing some form of "flip holder" where I can put eight to a page and have a way to easily remove the flip from the holder if necessary. My idea is to then include the ID, a short name, and a QR code to bring up a web page on the coin. When I do that, then it would be simple to just add the ID.
I see. That sounds very labor intensive. In a database, there would be one record for each coin, which could be linked to a form that has the label information, coin image (though I've never tried linking images) and any other fields, including one for write up updates for the coin. However, there are character limits for text, so for something really extensive a hyperlink would be needed. That could be complicated. And yes, even with a database, the flip labels would have to be coded to correspond to a given coin's record in the database.
