What drives me nuts

Of course Naville name and the Ars Classica name are both properly owned by NAC - purchased from the original Naville Ars Classica in the 1980s and are thus a valid continuation of the 1920s business. Just as the Seaby name is properly owned by CNG and still used in its UK business. Naville continues since the 1920s as a publisher and newsagent in central Europe today and maintained control of the name and thus was able to sell it for numismatic purposes when NAC started up; presumably it was Roberto Russo's idea to found a firm with similar excellent credentials. NAC have certainly lived up to those aspirations. And yet their catalogues are soft cover - understated yet excellent.

Glendinings numismatic business was I think taken over by Dix Noonan Webb and Sotheby's by Morton and Eden. I suspect either firm could probably come to some arrangement to use the older auctioneer names.

The S.Pozzi thing was another thing that irritated me. Plainly intended to deceive as it was made to appear to be the collector of original Naville Ars Classica 1 sale in the early 1920s but is actually an entirely different person, which would have been plain if they had spelled the first name in full.

What surprises me is that Bank Leu wasn't a trademarked name, still protected just as Seaby and Naville and Ars Classica were / are. When firms stop trading, usually their assets including their brand names are taken over by successors.

 

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I don't see this as a problem but recognition that technology changes the way we do things. I love my old catalogs but I would much rather have them all reentered in digital, searchable format so I could see what Joel Malter sold in 1963 as easily as what CNG sold last month.

I once thought I saw the future in numismatic publishing but I was wrong. Victor Failmezger asked me to do the coin photos for his book Roman Bronze Coins from Paganism to Christianity 294-364 AD. To humor me (since I was receiving no compensation for my photos) A CD ROM was included with the first printing of these books. It contained larger versions of the individual coins illustrated in the book on the 42 group (15 coin) plates. A few special coins were shown in two sizes but all were big enough to see details much better than you could on the lifesize printed plates. This was explained on page xi of the book and the CD was included at no charge. Many dealers who handled the books did not bother to distribute the disks. Silly me thought that this would catch on and all coin books would soon include digital and enlargeable images. I even thought we would soon see smaller books issued with no photos on cheaper paper but with many times more images than possible on paper at a fraction of the price. I thought people would adopt the concept to get a $200 book for $20. I was wrong. Most people who got the disks did not use them and later printings were not accompanied by the disk. I have not seen mention of the disk with any used copies I have seen even though used copies of the book sell for several times the issue price.

People are slow to accept new things. In 2002, I expected books now would have digital image backup but now I would expect the images to be links to web based plates. I would love to have seen books like the Sunrise collection backed up by online image links. People would not buy a $20 digitally imaged book on ordinary paper when they could get tiny images for ten times the price. There are online only books but there are some uses for page flipping so I did not foresee the end of paper. I wonder if this will change when my generation (those who flip pages) have all passed.

If any of you own the Failmezger book and have the disk in its original packing, I would like to hear from you whether or not you want it. I do not have a professionally reproduced and labelled one. I do have all the files.

I wonder if anyone ever looked at the enlargements or few details on that disk? They were taken with a Nikon Coolpix 990 which seemed good in 2002 but is embarrassing today.

 

I received today a nice catalogue for an auction that took place last weekend

 

Most computers are not made with disk drives anymore as there is very little need or demand. If you want one you will have to buy an external drive (I've been sans CD drive for what, over 5 years now and have never missed it).

 

I've gotten a few catalogs here and there. Don't know why, because out of my 130+ coins, I've only ever bought 9 or 10 at auction. I'm not a hard core auction person....but still, they send them to me.

I like to browse them once in a while to familiarize myself with different coins I don't own, and get an idea for prices.

 

The Leu catalogue is beautiful, and a complete waste of money. I've binned every one I've received. Come to think of it, I haven't received the latest one yet. Perhaps they could detect my binning from afar...

 

Maybe I’m the only one

For me, it was a nice surprise to receive this catalogue
I had a lot of fun going through it. Beautiful made book ! Some nice coins, nice pictures and the pages smell good

Hope to receive the next one as well.

 

Instead of binning, consider donating (local library or even better, a school library). It could serve as someone’s gateway to the hobby.

 

Technology has changed library donations, too. Books donated to our local library are scanned to see if they are worth selling to a broker. Books that sell used on Amazon for under the trigger amount are sold at book sales for $1. Ten years ago you could get some good things at these sales but now it is pretty much the things not worth the postage to ship off. They never put a donation on the shelves. Libraries are not all books anymore. They get more daily patrons using the public access computers that they do people who check out non-fiction books. They eliminated almost all reference books because the material people want now is easier to find online. They do a lot in fiction and children's books. There is no reference desk but librarians will help you do a Google search. Times are changing.

True. That was not the case in 2002. The equivalent today would be images online but the number of images online then was a fraction of what there is today. I do suggest keeping one older computer with USB, CD, 3 1/2 and 5" drives parked in a closet just in case you want to access the files you backed up 20 years ago. Of course you can pay someone who has a drive if it comes up.

 

As I live in California public libraries are homeless shelters more than anything else. Its sad. Years ago I donated a few dozen books on coins (mostly ancient) including some that now sell for hundreds. I was saddened to see none made it into the collection. They just sold or dumped them.

 

You guys have lame libraries. I don’t keep all donations but I do keep a lot, and we have an excellent specialized reference collection. Don’t give up on libraries!

 

I don't receive any catalogs, since I don't buy on auctions. But I wouldn't mind to, its something to look at and read. So if a company wants to send me one, by all means do, and if I don't want it anymore, it isn't hard to find a new home.

 

I still like them. They compliment the on line images and they actually put what the coin looks like to scale. On line everything is more or less the same size whether it be a sestertius of Trajan or one of his quinarii. They also give me a second look at all the coins. I try to find homes for all the ones sent to me that is except for the few I keep. oh on a personal note to Andrew McCabe. I believe I won one of your castoffs in the latest CNG E Auction.

 

Perhaps in the spirit of things that annoy. I was looking at some auction lots of coins in slabs. What I find is that the picture is of the slab and usually the picture of the coin is smaller than an aspirin making it impossible to actually see the coin. True I could click on each lot and try to view it then but after a while I get tired of this. I really do not need to see picture of the whole slab to know that the coin is inside one. I would rather be able to look at the coin quickly and then decide whether or not I want to proceed to give the coin more in depth look.

 

Mine arrived today! I have to say it's an impressive 2.7 kg!

 

I am one who saves catalogs with a semi-hoarder mentality, but its now becoming a problem. Just yesterday I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how I was going to re-arrange my bookshelves just to be able to place the latest 2 NAC catalogs adjacent to the rest of them. They are still on the table.

The reality is that except for a few (NAC, CNG, pre-internet auctions and important recent auctions), I almost never open the others. I suppose it is now time to recycle and gain some valuable space.

 

I've had the Leu catalogue for a few days and haven't had a chance to look through it.

Hershey on the other hand has found a use for it.



A higher vantage point for watching the birds outside the window.

 

I just got my Leu Cat today. Actually somebody I know would like it after I am done so it will get a home.