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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Valentinian, post: 2605430, member: 44316&quot;]As a very minor ancient-coin bookseller, I can testify that the demand for books has dropped dramatically in the last five-ten years. I used to sell auction catalogs by firm. I made an educational site:</p><p><a href="http://esty.ancients.info/catalogs/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://esty.ancients.info/catalogs/" rel="nofollow">http://esty.ancients.info/catalogs/</a></p><p>so collectors could see what was in catalogs and whether it might have some special emphasis that made it desirable to them. Later it was obvious that very few people cared, but some still desired catalogs that emphasized whatever they collected, so I created new pages with them organized by collecting theme:</p><p><a href="http://esty.ancients.info/catalogs/Themes.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://esty.ancients.info/catalogs/Themes.html" rel="nofollow">http://esty.ancients.info/catalogs/Themes.html</a></p><p>That was not my top priority project so it languished, far from complete, when I realized it should include the major books and even relevant articles. I began to add those in, but very slowly. I quit adding in sale catalogs because no one seemed to care.</p><p><br /></p><p>Collectors used to love their libraries. A decade ago some collectors wanted to fill out their runs from firms they liked. That goal disappeared more than five years ago. Some still wanted the best theme catalogs. That is almost totally gone. For example, Berk and Victor England (now CNG) jointly put on an amazing sale of Byzantine AE which was then reprinted in hardcover. If you collect Byzantine AE, wouldn&#039;t you like a hardcover reference of top AE coins with real prices realized?&nbsp; The answer appears to be &quot;No.&quot;</p><p>&nbsp; I hyped it like this on my site:</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://augustusmath.hypermart.net/numislit.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://augustusmath.hypermart.net/numislit.html" rel="nofollow">http://augustusmath.hypermart.net/numislit.html</a></p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Byzantine! Catalog:&nbsp; Berk-England auction sale of Dec. 7, 1989. *New* hardcover copy of the best modern sale for Byzantine AE.&nbsp; It had 368 outstanding Byzantine AE, with a few photographed in color and many with enlargements. To give you an idea of the quality and rarity, 20 lots realized $1000 or more! That&#039;s for copper!&nbsp; The emphasis is very strongly on early pieces -- there are only 34 pieces after AD 944. 61 pages. Excellent photos. If you collect Byzantine copper, see what you can aspire to.&nbsp; New, hardcover .&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>I have been asking $8 <b>postage included</b> in the US and that description has not produced a sale in months.</p><p><br /></p><p>So, I rearranged my sale site to be organized by collecting theme (books and catalogs together) and gave away many catalogs that had no identifiable emphasis that made them special (since no one was wanting them to fill out a run and they never sold). </p><p><br /></p><p>As for books, the major references still sell. I could sell Crawford easily at a strong price. I could sell Price&#039;s book on Alexander the Great coins easily at full price. For Byzantine, Dumbarton Oaks will sell if priced at a good discount below Amazon. But, I still have copy of Grierson, &quot;Byzantine Coins&quot; and that is the best one-volume work on the subject. On this forum someone recommended for beginners &quot;Collecting Greek Coins&quot; by John Anthony&nbsp; and I thought, &quot;I wonder if someone will order my copy&quot; (seeing as it is priced below elsewhere). No. </p><p><br /></p><p>We can glibly explain the lack of interest in ancient-coin books by saying so much information is available on the web that you can just look stuff up. True. You can get an ID number on the web. Sometimes posters here will include lots of information and they have done quit a bit of research (usually on the web). So, it is fair to say the need for books for information about individual coins has dropped significantly. </p><p><br /></p><p>However, it is also true that attention spans have dropped and the desire to sit down and really understand something complicated (say, Byzantine AE coins) has dropped with them. A book like Grierson&#039;s which used to be the normal way to learn about Byzantine coins (as opposed to merely IDing them) has been replaced by many websites which taken together do not yield a coherent image of the subject. Academic level understanding is hard work in a way that surfing the web is not. I surf the web a lot, but I know it does not add much knowledge compared to seriously reading the right book (I have, and have read, the right book, so I know). </p><p><br /></p><p>Before this wonderful forum existed, I wrote a website about becoming an ancient-coin collector. This page o it:</p><p><a href="http://esty.ancients.info/numis/learnmore.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://esty.ancients.info/numis/learnmore.html" rel="nofollow">http://esty.ancients.info/numis/learnmore.html</a> </p><p>had advice about how to learn more. I have not fully revised it, so it probably has too much emphasis on books for current tastes. </p><p><br /></p><p>Coin collecting is not a necessity, it is optional. You can enjoy it. Enjoyment is magnified by the interest of the coins, and the interest is dependent upon your knowledge. You can be proud of what you know which makes some coin you buy interesting. (For some US coin collectors, interesting means &quot;high grade&quot; or &quot;expensive&quot; and they don&#039;t get far beyond that. If they do, they may turn to collecting ancient coins). It starts out, I think, &quot;This is very old!&quot; and moves along from there. It follows that the more you know, the more interest coins have, and the more you enjoy the subject and hobby.</p><p><br /></p><p>For me, money spent on books has been well-spent. Books are a &quot;force multiplier&quot; that makes all the money spent on coins worth more in terms of pleasure and buying acumen. Maybe I am too old-school, but it is a bit sad that so many collectors know so little about the series they claim to collect. Make a New Year&#039;s resolution to learn more at a deeper level and you will not regret it.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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