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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 8054382, member: 19463&quot;]A problem I have encountered in studying from books and illustrated auction catalogs is that it is often the case that more high dollar items will be shown than things more common that I might be able to include in my collection.&nbsp; It is easier to find illustrations of dekadrachms than it is fractions of obols.&nbsp; Certainly there are exceptions like the SNG Turkey 1 (Kayhan collection) which I enjoy greatly.&nbsp; Old auction catalogs that were well printed and informative were likely to have as many coins of Pescennius Niger or Pertinax as they were of Septimius Severus.&nbsp; This makes sense since it costs the same to print a catalog listing of a $10,000 coin as it does a $10 one.&nbsp; This has greatly improved in these days of online photo listings.&nbsp; I have not seen HGC on Sicily, for example, but wonder if it varies from the expected practice of having a&nbsp; more complete listing of tetradrachms than litra/obol or smaller coins.&nbsp; People issue books that will sell and more people want to see big and flashy coins.&nbsp; Greek coins have a serious problem in that there are a million different ones and 90% are somewhat &#039;ordinary&#039; and tend to be smaller than non-collectors expect.&nbsp; Years ago we got a great die study of silver from Syracuse by Boehringer and in 1990, Emilio Favorito published a 50-60 page pamphlet on the bronzes.&nbsp; While I admire the work of Boehringer, more of the coins in my collection are in Favorito.&nbsp; I tend not to buy new books until I have some reason to believe that they really improve the coverage of an area of interest rather than just renumbering the coins included. That is why I ask and wonder why publishers make me have to ask what is being sold.&nbsp; A comprehensive work on Greek coins would take twenty feet of shelf space and cost more than anyone would pay.&nbsp; That is why I suspect the better new resources will be online and electronic but it is too much to ask even online authors and publishers to work for free.&nbsp; I am thrilled that we are starting to get online catalogs of great collections like BM and BnF.&nbsp; It is a start and can benefit those who are unable to travel the world and do the research first hand.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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