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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;robp, post: 3203106, member: 96746&quot;]All people have to do is be prepared to spend money on books that they would otherwise earmark for coins. It isn&#039;t rocket science, just hard work, lots of reading and patience. Taking care that the lot description is correct is also important because auction notices aren&#039;t a new thing. Pristine catalogues are nice, but tatty ones with lots of hand scribbled notes are much better and far more valuable for the detective. </p><p><br /></p><p>The American obsession with slabbing creates a bit of problem with provenances because any tickets often get thrown away once the coin is entombed. Tickets are a valuable source of provenance because every collector will record the details differently and in a different hand. This makes the job a lot harder. </p><p><br /></p><p>For British coins, an article by Robin Eaglen in the 2001 BNJ illustrated tickets for a good number of collectors. For collectors of other material, there may be a similar publication, but it doesn&#039;t come within my collecting sphere.</p><p><br /></p><p>Illustrated catalogues didn&#039;t really appear until the back end of the 19th century, and then only for some of the major collections, and then only for the best pieces in that collection. Prior to that you really are dependent on annotated sale catalogues, or a ticket with pertinent info.</p><p><br /></p><p>Sometimes it is possible to identify irregular coins from the wood carving blocks used for illustrating old books, but usually only for the coins that are known to be rare. With milled coinage you are on a hiding to nothing.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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