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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;akeady, post: 4507560, member: 83175&quot;]Agreed - when I see something, it&#039;s either for me or not and I&#039;m reminded of Chester Beatty&#039;s standards and grading terms!</p><p><br /></p><p>As background, there&#039;s a lovely museum in Dublin - The Chester Beatty Library - <a href="https://chesterbeatty.ie/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://chesterbeatty.ie/" rel="nofollow">https://chesterbeatty.ie/</a> - it&#039;s small as museums go, but the collection just glows.</p><p><br /></p><p>Alfred Chester Beatty was an American mining engineer who made a huge fortune, spent many years in the UK, eventually relocating to Ireland for tax purposes and became the first Honorary Irish Citizen, basically for donating his collection of mostly Eastern manuscripts to the State.&nbsp;&nbsp; He didn&#039;t collect coins, as far as I know.</p><p><br /></p><p>Anyway, the normally fairly dull proceedings of Seanad Éireann have occasional interesting tidbits, including this debate:</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/seanad/1985-12-19/9/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/seanad/1985-12-19/9/" rel="nofollow">https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/seanad/1985-12-19/9/</a></p><p><br /></p><p><i><b>&quot;It is no good keeping things that are not first class, they simply keep the collection down.&quot;</b></i> - this is absolutely true, but... who can resist that place-filler?</p><p><br /></p><p><b><i>Its founder understood quality to mean, first and foremost, good condition and then other factors were considered; rarity, value, age, aesthetic or artistic merit.</i></b></p><p><br /></p><p>and:</p><p><br /></p><p><i><b>He had his own system of notetaking while visiting a dealer&#039;s shop. For example, if he did not wish to buy an item, he would write DCFI meaning &quot;Don&#039;t care for it&quot; or NFFC meaning &quot;Not fit for collection&quot;. He categorised everything he bought as A, B or C. He rarely bought ‘C&#039; material and if he did he would sell it again immediately. Only exceptionally would he allow ‘B&#039; material to remain in the collection. The ‘A&#039;s were graded as ‘A+&#039;, ‘A&#039; and ‘A-&#039;.</b></i></p><p><br /></p><p>I think much of my collection would merit a &quot;DCFI&quot; or &quot;NFFC&quot; rating!</p><p><br /></p><p>ATB,</p><p>Aidan.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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