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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 2465069, member: 19463&quot;]Those of you new to the hobby would be amazed at the low end market before digital photography.&nbsp; Even high end lists sometimes would not photograph every coin but the end of the market selling $50 and under coins (perhaps $200 today) rarely had images.&nbsp; I&#039;d get at least five price lists a week with half being unillustrated.&nbsp; You soon got to know whether a coin a certain dealer called fine would be acceptable to you and the grade coins populating eBay today just were not sold as much.&nbsp;&nbsp; It made it hard to collect some things since many dealers did not bother with mintmarks on LRB coins.&nbsp; One dealer was regular in saying a Septimius coin was probably barbarous when they were Emesa mint.&nbsp;&nbsp; One dealer offered $1 Polaroids and would cram as many coins as would fit on the thing.&nbsp; Sometimes you would get a photo cut raggedly since he would combine images for more than one customer each wanting only a couple small coins.&nbsp; I considered it unnecessary in many cases since the descriptions were good enough to give an idea and you could always phone and ask for details before ordering.&nbsp; We had to phone as soon as a list arrived because most of the good deals went to people with good mail service and the willingness to call.&nbsp; We then had a certain number of days to get a check to the dealer (no PayPal).&nbsp; Big deal catalogs like NFA had full illustrations and the arrival of an NFA mail sale auction catalog made my whole week.&nbsp; I have most of the ones I got tossing out only catalogs of sellers who mixed US and modern with their few ancients.&nbsp; Some of the illustrations in some catalogs were terrible (I&#039;m thinking of a couple in particular but fear they may be lurking here - or their grandchildren???).&nbsp; I know I learned as much from sale catalogs as from fancy hardcovered books.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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