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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Andrew McCabe, post: 3546191, member: 90666&quot;]Very little in my rather large library is available online in any format. The German language sales before WW2 and some US sales are an exception, available at Heidelberg and Newman respectively. But for 90%, the material in the books or catalogues is not available in any format outside these printed formats.</p><p><br /></p><p>Younger collectors especially, with deep unfamiliarity in looking through paper, have no idea how much information they miss through an assumption that it&#039;s &quot;all online&quot;. True there are basics such as coin descriptions. But the much longer explanations about how the numismatic information was derived, and the historical meaning of specialist elements of a coin such as control symbols or specific legend varieties, is typically never available online. Online descriptions are typically just a repetition of the legend and a description of the pictures, full stop. It is for this reason when I sell coins I include much information that isn&#039;t easily accessible, especially where interpretation is needed. For example my last batch included this coin:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]942521[/ATTACH] </p><p>Looks like a common low value type at first glance. And even if by some fluke, someone had worked through the taxonomic logic and given it the correct description and catalogue references, that wouldn&#039;t mean anything - still just a common low value type. But by having access to printed books I was able to add the following comment:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;The wing symbol is an engraver&#039;s mark, which Crawford demonstrated by showing that on this specific die, the reins are held by Victory in the right rather than left hand, with the left hand only holding palm, and the whip ordinarily held in right hand is omitted entirely. He uses all these minor changes to the normal design as evidence for a specific engraving hand that he links to the rare wing symbol (discussion RRC p. 338). All other reverses have the palm branch and reins in the left hand, leaving the right hand free to wave a whip. The wing symbol is rare, none being illustrated in Banti or in CoinArchives. The only illustrated auction example I am aware of is Coin Galleries, December 2004, lot 417 (symbol misdescribed as an apluster, with no comment on the reverse details, sale available on Newman Numismatic Portal) = Birkler &amp; Waddell, December 1982, lot 237. There are only three symbols: grasshopper (common), ear (rare), and wing (rare, and this symbol only occurs where there is a letter P on the obverse, whereas the grasshopper also occurs with multiple variable letters and with no symbol, as does the ear symbol). The taxonomy of this issue is complex. Crawford distinguishes between “control mark”, which in practice is A, B, or C for 337/2e (cf. Hersh, symbols manuscript in the ANS), but in contrast for 337/2f only the letter “P”, which by implication he doesn&#039;t regard as a control mark and therefore must stand for something. As this is the issue where E.L.P. (“E LEGE PAPIRIA”) and L.P.D.A.P. occur on the related bronzes (“LEGE PAPIRIA DE ASSIS PONDERE”), perhaps the P stands for Papiria, though this isn&#039;t suggested by Crawford, Grueber, Babelon, or Sydenham. In fact, all say nothing at all. Bahrfeldt does comment in Nachtraege volume 3 (1918) and suggests (but without any discussion) that it stands for Publice – presumably meaning public money. A very important rarity, both due to the rare symbol as well as due to the different arrangement of Victory and the omission of the whip.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>That information immensely increased my enjoyment of this coin, and hopefully it will do for the new owner too. It needed book research.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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