Information wants to be $35

On Friday a Yahoo account named 'Mike Robe' (=microbe) offered CD-ROMs containing the entire run of “Bulletin on Counterfeits” and an index, for $35. The offer sounded bogus, but initial reports said it was legit.

The web site hosting the offer is now gone, and the seller claims his run of 25 copies sold out.

Reid Goldsborough reports that the IAPN is now considering selling a legitimate CD-ROM. No word on availability or price.

Reid concludes his message with a screed against freeloaders, saying “If I and others aren't paid for some of our work, if everything is free for the taking, guess what's going to happen to the quality of information available.”

I wish it was that simple.

I'm told that most books on ancient coins do not recoup their printing costs. Authors who have the support of a press willing to take a loss can get paid. Everyone else has to self-publish. Under these conditions it makes sense to write for free. Why would anyone want to earn NEGATIVE $7000 publishing a book? Better to put it online and only lose $10/month.

There isn't much money in numismatic writing. I've heard that RPC volumes 8 and 9 are done but there is no money to pay for publishing. The publishers of Agoranomia tell me they don't like putting 'coins' or 'coinage' in titles because it discourages libraries from buying! We are in a period in history when there is very little interest in old coins. I don't think the lack of interest is because of file-sharing. No one has offered me digital copies of RPC!

Publishers are free to charge whatever they want. A pirate who named himself after H5N1 Avian Flu sold 25 copies of BoC and made about $30x25=$750 profit last week. The IAPN made a business decision to price BoC at over $500 and probably made $0 last week. I'd rather the IAPN get the money, but that's now how economics works.

The musician Frank Zappa was very clever. Pirates released albums of his concerts. Frank took their packaging and sold it himself. The IAPN could turn around tomorrow and sell microbe's package.

I bought the IAPN's book on The Caprara Forgeries and was paying $60/year for “Counterfeit Coin Bulletin”. I thought Caprara was worth the money.

The recent incarnation of the Bulletin was not worth $60/year to a collector. It was mostly pictures of US fakes with arrows pointing to die flaws. No interesting text. To a dealer, $60 may be a bargain. Collectors don't see it that way. One suggestion is to charge a lot of money for current issues, and make additional money selling last year's issues to collectors at a lower price.

New software for 'scanning' with digital camera

Teleread's Branko Collin briefly discusses Snapter, new software to improve digital photographs of books making pages look scanned.

A free trial of Snapter is available from the Atiz website.

New book on forgeries

SP-P has announced a new book by I. Prokopov, Coin Forgeries and Replicas 2006. I haven't seen this book yet. The earlier books in the series are good.

The book publishes 201 fakes, including a 20 page catalog of fake Histiaea tetrobols.

New discounts from David Brown Book Company

The David Brown Book Company is discounting these titles:

Caesarea Maritima: The Coins and the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Economy of Palestine by Jane DeRose Evans
$68.00 (list $84.95)

Agoranomia: Studies in Money and Exchange Presented to John H. Kroll edited by Peter G. van Alfen
$100.00 (list $125.00)

Roman Provincial Coinage VII: Gordian I to Gordian III (238-244). Première partie. Province d'Asie by Marguerite Spoerri Butcher
$192.00 (list $240.00)

Roman Provincial Coinage, Volume I by Andrew Burnett, Michael Amandry and Pere Pau Ripollès
$260.00 (list $325.00)

Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum Deutschland 14: Attika - Megaris - Aegina
$76.00 (list $96.00)

Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum Deutschland: Syrien: Nicht-koenigliche Praegungen
$132.00 (list $165.00)

Islamic History Through Coins: An Analysis and Catalogue of Tenth-Century Ikhshidid Coinage by Jere L Bacharach
$22.00 (list $24.50)

Money of the Caribbean edited by Richard G Doty and John M Kleeberg
$52.00 (list $65.00)

Coins of the Holy Land: The Abraham D. Sofaer Collection at The American Numismatic Society by Ya'akov Meshorer et al.
$120 (list $150)

Sylloge of Coins in the British Isles 55: Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg Part IV. English, Irish and Scottish Coins, 1066-1485 by Marina Mucha
29.98 (list $85.00)

Ancient Greek Coins: Catalogue of the Classical Collection, Museum of Art (RI) by Ross Holloway
14.98 (list $50.00)

Ancient Jewish Coinage: Vol. 1. by Ya'Akov Meshorer
9.98 (list $45.00)

Catalogue of the Aksumite Coins in the British Museum by Stuart Munro-Hay
49.98 (list $117.00)

Coin Hoards IX. Greek Hoards Meadows, Andrew
79.98 (list $130.00)

Zecca: Mint of Venice in Middle Ages by Alan M. Stahl
19.98 (list $79.00)

Coinage and Identity in the Roman Provinces edited by Christopher Howgego, Volker Heuchert and Andrew Burnett
59.98 (list $150.00)

The Coinage of the Atrebates and Regni by Simon Bean
19.98 (list $50.00)

Coins (Interpreting the Past) Burnett, Andrew M.
4.98 (list $12.95)

Humphrey Cole: Mint, Measurement and Maps edited by Silke Ackermann
9.98 (list $27.00)

Metal Analyses of Roman Coins Minted under the Roman Empire by L H Cope, C. E. King, J. P. Northover and T. Clay
9.98 (list $22.50)

Studies in Greek Numismatics in Memory of Martin Jessop Price edited by R Ashton and S Hurter
39.98 (list $150.00)

Sylloge: (SNG ANS 6) Palestine-South Arabia Meshorer, Ya'Akov
14.98 (list $125.00)

Should fake antique dealers be punished?

Writing for China Daily, Li Qian asks Should fake antique dealers be punished?

“A fake ancient coin dealer was sentenced to three years in jail and fined at a Nanjing court days earlier, causing an uproar in the collections [sic] society...”

“Experts estimate as many as half of antiques dealers would face jail terms in China if the country punishes them using current laws for common businesses...”

“Fake antique articles have left many collectors suffering from hefty losses, as the technological trend of counterfeiting becomes a headache for even the most experienced experts ... Some [forgers] raise bugs and mice to bite on scrolls to make them appear ancient.”

Elsen auction 91 online

Jean Elsen's auction 91 catalog is online, with 474 ancient coins. There are also many 'siege coins'.

Tom Cederlind Buy or Bid sale 142

Tom Cederlind's Buy or Bid Sale #142, with 358 lots, is online now. Closes April 5th.

Copyrighting individual coin descriptions

The e-Sylum reported yesterday on David Hewett's story on the auction description copyright lawsuit between Heritage and Superior.

Hewett's article shows examples where the same word patterns are used first in Heritage catalogs and then in Superior catalogs, for example in describing an 1879 gold Stella:

The regal beauty of this curious denomination has kept demand very high for an attractive example, such as the coin offered here, and many numismatists have long desired to own such a prize. However, the price of ownership seems to continue to outpace all but those who greatly desire and can afford the cost required to secure an example. Here is an opportunity for yet another collector to fulfill the dream of finally obtaining one of America’s most popular and unusual denominations ever produced.

Heritage, February 23, 2005

The regal beauty of this curious denomination has kept demand very high for an attractive example, such as the coin offered here, and many numismatists have long desired to own such a prize. However, the price of ownership seems to continue to outpace all but those who greatly desire and can afford the cost required to secure an example. Here is an opportunity for yet another collector to fulfill the dream of finally obtaining one of America’s most popular and unusual denominations ever produced.

Superior, September 29, 2006

The problem is that Superior hired an ex-Heritage cataloger, James Jones. It is difficult for a person not to sound like himself when describing the same coin type! This case reminds me of the famous "stealing from himself" lawsuit against rock singer/composer John Fogerty. In that case, a manager who owned part of an old song's copyright sued the singer for rights to a new song that sounded a lot like the old one.

Collectors want the descriptions of similar coins to look similar. If every cataloger put creativity into every description there would be no way to compare descriptions. For example, one of the examples in the suit uses “glossy chocolate-brown surfaces” to describe a colonial Vermont copper. We don't want one dealer using 'chocolate-brown', another using 'coffee', another using 'mocha', another using 'mahogany', etc.

For longer prose descriptions like the Stella quote above it may make sense to ban re-use of descriptions by catalogers who change firms. I don't know. I don't want a large settlement scaring other auction houses into bizarre sentence construction and new adjectives. (I'd also like to see catalogers get bylines on catalogs.)

Israel cracks down on delinquent diggers

A short item by Roger Atwood on Israel's demands that licensed diggers publish their findings. (via PhDiva, who notes that Egypt adopted a similar policy.)

Atwood's book on looting was recently remaindered and can be purchased cheaply at Oxbow books.

United States bans collecting of military medals

The United States banned collecting of military medals on December 20, 2006. It's illegal to purchase, sell, mail, ship, import, or export any service medal, badge, ribbon, or imitation.

A long article by David Hewett in the March issue of Maine Antique Digest covers the law and the response in the medal collecting community.

http://www.maineantiquedigest.com/articles/mar07/medals0307.htm

The anti-collecting law was part of the Stolen Valor Act, an attempt to ban the practice of fraudulently wearing unearned medals. The anti-collecting provisions were the result of over-zealous bill-writing. The article says the Orders and Medals Society of America (OMSA) had its members contact their representatives, which was almost successful -- there were promises of changing the wording of the bill to allow collectors and museums to continue acquiring the pieces. Unfortunately the law passed with the original anti-collector anti-museum wording.

The OMSA website carries further details.

I am surprised that this law was proposed, debated, and passed without my knowledge. I first learned of it this morning!

I do not support con men wearing imitation Purple Hearts but it should be legal for a soldier or heir to donate medals to the local history museum and send them the medal to the museum through the US mail. It should be legal to make and sell replica medals to Hollywood directors making war movies. Schools where they train engravers to make future medals should be able to obtain representative styles of medals. Why not just keep capitalism legal, and ban merely the practice of wearing a medal with intent to deceive?

New accusations in Veliko Tarnovo Museum coin robbery

Michel van Rijn has a new post on the Veliko Tarnovo Museum robbery of last year, written by Arthur Brand. Van Rijn's site links to this blog because we wrote about Bulgarian reports last year. Brand's post claims to give the names of the robbers. It also claims the coins were moved through eBay sellers 'Pagane' and 'Silenos'.

A better source than this blog for details on the case is this FORVM post.

I haven't been keeping up with the story but there doesn't seem to be anything new other than Brand's accusations. Google has a new News Archive Search; searches there for /Veliko Tarnovo robbery/ offer few details. Most of the details are behind paywalls, and seem to be repostings of the material that came out early last year.

The Sofia Echo claims to have reported, in April, on calls for the museum director to step down. Apparently he did; in September the Echo suggested that the proposed new director of the museum, Hristo Haritonov, might be underqualified. That doesn't make any sense, because Mr. Haritonov was already the director! Perhaps the dates are wrong on the Echo's web site, or I misunderstood before and Mr. Haritonov did get a promotion in August.

(Mr. Haritonov is a numismatist and writer. His books include Coins in the Bulgarian Folk Culture (c. XV-XVII). He also wrote the paper “Semiotic Aspects of the Monetary Iconography in the Context of the Medieval Bulgarian Culture” which was published in the museum's journal.) I have never read these books and would be curious to know if they are highly regarded.)

Anyway, both the police and museum claim to have photos of the stolen coins. It should be a simple matter to check eBay's records. I would have preferred the release of the photos allowing the public to help in the search. Maybe Brand is wrong and the coins are still out there? It would be wonderful if Brand has cracked the case but I am skeptical. I don't recall these eBay dealers moving a better or different product than their usual offerings any time in 2006.

I look forward to more details as they are uncovered.

Harlan J Berk sale 153

Harlan J. Berk sale 153 is online. 442 ancient coins, plus antiquities.

The catalog arrived today. If there was an email announcing this sale I missed it.

Numismatic literature

This month's Celator contains a full-page 'People in the News' segment on new firm Douaglas Saville Numismatic Books. Kerry Wetterstrom talks highly of Saville's FPL No. 1.

A highlight of the FPL is the complete set of 17 Ars Classica/Naville auction catalogs bound in eight volumes (£2200). Kerry Wetterstrom, apparently quoting Saville, calls this series the “single most important series of auction sales relating to Greek coins ever published.”

I wonder why? Although I've seen the catalogs in person at Charles Davis's NYINC booth I've been afraid to open them up and look at them. What makes them worth $200 each?

These catalogs have about 1500-3500 lots and 30-100 plates. That was a lot of photographs for their day, but modern catalogs reach that. Modern catalogs are in color and free.

Some auction catalogs are purchased by literature collectors who want the catalog as an object. I am interested in catalogs for the information they carry. A finite budget forces me to be selective. How shall I choose which old catalogs to acquire?

Warren Esty's site discusses the merits of ancient coin auction catalogs. Mr. Esty has done a great service to the coin collector by inventing a series of codes to compactly describe the focus of ancient coin auction catalogs. For each catalog in his collection he tells us how many Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Celtic coins are presented. He has also invented codes for the quality of the coins inside (he uses MV, HV, and VHV, which mean $, $$, and $$$!) and for the presentation of the catalog (photography, printing, etc). If a catalog has a special focus (a city or denomination) he calls that out.

I wish book dealers would adopt Mr. Esty's codes.

Hiding valuables in your home

A burglar offers advice on hiding valuables.

Gorny & Mosch auctions 155-7

Gorny & Mosch auctions 155, 156, and 157 catalogs are online. Auctions are held 5-8 March 2007.

Kolbe auction 102

The Kolbe auction 102 catalog is online. 707 numismatic books. Closes March 15th.

Books (non-numismatic)

Forbes: The 10 Most Expensive Books Of 2006 (via Books Found blog).

Half of the top ten were geographical works by classical authors!

There is a $10/month service called ScoutPal that allows you to look up Amazon Marketplace value of books and CDs from your cell phone.

Slang of the Book Trade: part one and part two, from the great new Bookride blog.

Coin database formats

The Vatican Library's coin collection is coming online, with photographs. Many papal coins and medals are already viewable. The Vatican has chosen to use MARC 21 as their metadata format.

A coin database needs fields for the attributes that can be searched. Sebastian Heath and Andrew Meadows have created the Numismatic Metadata Project to determine the ideal fields for numismatic metadata.

Existing databases, like the Moneta, ISEGRIM, and Tantalus Coins (no direct link to their database format) use whatever fields the authors and users wanted.

For librarians and computer scientists this is a problem. It makes it difficult to combine databases when the fields have slightly different meanings. I wish Heath and Meadows success in uniting the field with a single proposal with strictly defined meanings for each field.

Achieving concensus on design is difficult because different users expect different things. For example, I often use coin databases to identify coins from partial inscriptions. I'd like a numismatic database to contain information on individual letter characteristics, such as serif vs. sans-serif, and orientation (vertical, horizontal, clockwise, etc.) Most users won't want to even see that on the screen - so why put it in the database?

Restrictions on Cypriot coins

By now you've read that the government of Cyprus wishes to add 'coins more than 250 years old' to the list of restricted cultural objects making it illegal to import such items without a license from Cyprus and requiring our Customs and Border Patrol to be on the lookout for such coins.

Hopefully you've also read Wayne Sayles' response.

I'd like to see a world where numismatists can send coins across borders for study — a Numismatic Free Trade Agreement — and don't like it when governments try to restrict the sale of old coins.

This agreement is more than just a restriction that burdens coin collectors. Adding coins to Cyprus' list means that our customs agents will need to learn to recognize the coins of Cyprus.

Customs is a hard job. (Here is a nice How Customs Works that explains what the officers do.) It's best if the list of things the agents need to monitor is small. It isn't hard to recognize a gun or a brick of cocaine. Recognizing Cypriot coins is harder than detecting guns. Obviously a smuggler isn't going to write 'auto parts' on a shipment of coins. He is going to write something like 'recent silver tokens'. The Customs agent will need to study the difference, leaving little time to look for guns and bricks of cocaine.

When the Iraqi museum was robbed the state department put out a list of stolen Iraqi artifacts, including coins. This was a problem, because no coins were stolen! The list is still there, but now says 'Present, Stolen or Missing'. (Coins are 'Present', but you wouldn't know it from the site.) Look at the 'Islamic Coins' and 'Parthian Coins' on that website. This is the kind of information that will be given to Customs agents.

There is a pre-existing agreement for Byzantine metal antiquities with Cyprus; the images are here. If coins are added you can expect to see 'Greek', 'Byzantine', and 'Medieval' coins added to that list. Having coins on the list means Customs Agent will be spending a lot of time opening boxes when the X-ray shows coins. Recent and old coins look similar under the X-ray.

More Google

Jeffrey Toobin reports on Google's Moon Shot in next week's The New Yorker.

According to the article, Google plans to scan at least 32 million volumes, and be finished within ten years. The article estimates the cost of this at $800,000,000; elsewhere I've read numbers as low as $100,000,000 million.

“Previously, when people have done scanning, they always were constrained by their budget and their scale,” Clancy told me. “They had to spend all this time figuring out which were the perfect ten thousand books, so they spent as much time in selection as in scanning. All the technology out there developed solutions for what I’ll call low-rate scanning. There was no need for a company to build a machine that could scan thirty million books. Doing this project just using commercial, off-the-shelf technology was not feasible. So we had to build it ourselves.”

A few years ago I was begging Frank Campbell to let me scan some titles at the ANS library. He had so many concerns I hinted that it might be better for me to just wait for Google. Frank seemed surprised that I would believe Google would scan numismatic works and auction catalogs.

As the article implies, Google doesn't have a choice. They cannot afford to decide which books are worthy of scanning. At $30 to scan a book it's cheaper to scan than to pay a graduate student to decide which books are worth scanning! If librarians in any of Google's member libraries thought a title was worth acquisitioning then it'll be on Google.

What won't be there? 20th century auction catalogs? Anything else?

In related news, Google's copyright lawyer has a blog.

Maps from books

Google's blog announced yesterday the addition of automatically generated maps for books.

For example, suppose you are reading the anonymous catalog International Medallic Exhibition of the American Numismatic Society. Click on 'About this book' and a new section, 'Places mentioned in this book' appears. It's a map of the world, with red pins sticking into it.

One of the pins is over Texas. Hover over the pin and a tooltip reading "Sabine Pass, Texas" appears. Click on the Texas pin and a balloon appears with an excerpt showing the details of medal 3395 and a page number. Click on the page number and page 242 appears with 'Sabine Pass, Texas' highlighted.

Not only is the technology amazing, but completely automated. No bibliographer typed in a list of cities into Google. An Artificial Intelligence figured this out on its own.

The flaws in this techology are obvious. Also on page 242 is a Washington medal of New Orleans, but New Orleans doesn't appear on the map. Presumably Google's software is looking for "(city), (state)" and "(city), (country)" patterns. It hasn't yet been taught the "(important city)" pattern.

It's an important start. I look forward to that day when Google can extract the ancient cities - polis - and map Greek coin books.

Counterfeit detection pens

Excellent article on how counterfeit detector pens work.

The pens detect the starch content in money. Regular paper has starch, currency paper doesn't.

Magician and skeptic James Randi uses an ironing product, spray starch, that makes genuine bills appear counterfeit. Then he returns the starched bills to the bank. Eventually someone will attempt to pass the genuine but starched bill, leading to police, siezed money, etc.

Legal and Ethical Issues in Ancient Numismatics

I hadn't noticed this before, but last year the ANS added 'Legal and Ethical Issues in Ancient Numismatics' to the reading list for the Eric P. Newman Graduate Seminar. (This is the seminar the ANS offers on numismatics to graduate students in related fields like Classics and Archeology.)

It's an interesting list.

The ANS's own statement on cultural property is here.

Sonic Fingerprints Safeguard Art

A report by Nicole Martinelli, Sonic Fingerprints Safeguard Art, discusses Pietro Cosentino's invention of 'sonic fingerprinting' for antiquities.

Professor Cosentino attached sensors to an ancient funeral url, then tapped the urn with a small rubber hammer. The sensors recorded the vibrations. The idea is to create a 'fingerprint' of the interior structure of the urn.

According to the report, the technique works on stone, wood and ceramics. Not metal, so this wouldn't be a good technique for examining ancient coins.

Ancient coins has a similar technique called the 'ring test'. The coin is struck and a human listens for a ringing sound. Reid Goldsborough explains the test. It's used for detecting cast counterfeits and to check for crystalization.

Could a quantitative test be developed for ancient metallic objects? Perhaps something with a tuning fork and very accurate measurement of sound waves or object vibrations? I suspect such a test would reveal very little about coins of good metal, but perhaps would be of use for measuring crystalization or patina composition.

(via Harvard Art Law News).

“I'd like nothing better than to do a film on the antiquities trade.”

Part 2 of Suzan Mazur's interview with Bruce McNall.

McNall talks about the antiquities market, Hecht, Numismatic Fine Arts, and the Hunt brothers, as well as his new movie Alpha Dog starring Bruce Willis, Justin Timberlake and Sharon Stone.

Right Wing Coin Geek

Dealer Jim McGarigle (Polymath Numismatics) has a new blog, Right Wing Coin Geek. In today's post he explains how he prices ancient coins. He also touches on misattribution and rarity.

Priceless mirror makes smashing TV debut

Ouch! IOL reports that a bronze mirror from the Warring States period, 475-221 BC, fell out of its box while being held by an assistant during taping of a Chinese television program.

Although priceless, the owner Chen Fengjiu had previously been offered $1,000,000 for the mirror.

Freeman and Sear FPL 12

The printed catalog for Freeman and Sear Fixed Price List 12 arrived yesterday. 190 lots. The catalog features coins with fine portraits of rare rulers, including this tetradrachm of Cleopatra and Marc Antony.

The famous catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition of Ancient Greek Art

Alan Walker of LHS Numismatik gave a fascinating talk on “Famous Collectors of Greek Coins” last Saturday at NYINC on behalf of the ACCG.

Walker told personal anecdotes about several 'name' collectors and described the auctions and catalogs of their coins.

The collectors were Photiades, Rhousopoulos, (Arthur John) Evans, Jameson, Pozzi, Clarence S. Bement, and Charles Gillet & Marion Schuster. Except for the Schusters I had heard all the names before but knew next to nothing about them. I vaguely knew that Evans had excavated linear-B tablets on Knossos and that Pozzi was a doctor who was murdered by a patient. The others were just names.

Walker's research into the people behind the names illuminated the collecting scene in the 19th and early 20th century. I was surprised that a lecture on coin collecting could be as interesting as the coins.

Although these collectors were not or have lost universal fame they are famous enough in numismatics to have only 'one name', justifying the 'Famous' in the title.

Describing Evans's coins, Walker says “... 211 of Evans's coins, all from Magna Graecia and Sicily save for nine from Crete, were published by G. Hill in the famous catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition of Ancient Greek Art held in 1904.” [emphasis mine].

Walker might have used 'famous' in jest, but I suspect he believes Hill's catalog is truely famous. Perhaps to the people who were in the room the catalog is famous.

(Walker makes an error; I believe the exhibition was held in 1903 and published in 1904. The Historia Numorum (1911) bibliography gives 1903 as the publication date. The ANS library catalogue entry holds both dates. Clain-Stefanelli's bibliography doesn't have an entry for the catalog.)

I've never seen a copy. The ANS library has one but it must be in the rare book room — I've never seen it in the regular Greek coinage stacks. I've never seen it offered for sale at a coin show. I don't recall it listed in any auctions of numismatic literature. Google hasn't scanned it. Clain-Stefanelli's bibliography doesn't list it and neither does Kroh's. 'Obscure' is a better description for the catalog.

I only know of the catalog because Historia Numorum cites it twice for tetradrachms of Sicily. For years I've fantasized annotating my Historia Numorum web site with photos, including the two from Hill's Burlington catalog.

If there is a community of numismatic bibliophiles for whom this catalog is famous I need to meet these people and hang out with them.

Hirsch auction catalog online

The Gerhard Hirsch Nachfolger auction catalog is now online. Antiquities, ancient coins, and over 600 lots of numismatic literature. (Mostly covering German coins, though.)

The web site is a bit difficult to navigate. I received the printed catalogs in the mail yesterday.

Interview with Bruce McNall on Roman Bronze Boy

Suzan Mazur has a brief interview with Bruce McNall on the Scoop website.

The interview implies the difficulty of forensic testing of bronze antiquities. Robert Hecht is mentioned.

Joseph Eckhel, Doctrina Nvmorvm Vetervm

I purchased two books this week. The first was Broome's A Handbook of Islamic Coins. Spink has reprinted it, and was selling it at NYINC for $50 although I couldn't find it on Spink's web site. (Used copies of the 1985 edition run about $300).

The other title was Antiquarian Books on Coins and Medals by Bassoli. This short book (88 pages) includes a 3 page chapter on abbot Joseph Hilarius Eckhel, author of the landmark Doctrina Numorum Veterum (1792-1798) (in Latin). This chapter begins with an odd anecdote about Eckhel refusing to use his connections to find his newphew a job, saying “anyone who can [read, write, and count] properly needs no other recommendations, and can make his way in life off his own back.”

I can't read Latin, but I can puzzle through basic coin descriptions and a lot of 19th century books cite it. Curtis Clay has praised the work. It was last reprinted in the 1830s, and is expensive. Spink wants $5000 for "a very fine set" "perhaps the very best set we've seen"; I couldn't find another copy for sale. So it's good news that Google has provided us with a digital copy:

Greek
[vol 1]
[vol 2]
[vol 3]
[vol 4]

Roman
[vol 5]
[vol 6]
[vol 7]
[vol 8]

Bassoli says these books have “some tables of coins”. I couldn't find them on Google's site (but didn't look to hard.) If you are interested in Bassoli you'll have to order it from Kolbe or Spink. Regular online stores don't carry it. Online book searches for Bassoli only yield the original Italian edition, Monete e medaglie nel libro antico dal XV al XIX secolo.

Masked robbers steal $4 million in rare coins

The Miami-Herald reports Masked robbers steal $4 million in rare coins at the FUN show.

A witness told police she saw the Mitsubishi pull into the hotel ahead of her, blocking her from the entrance. Three men wearing dark hooded shirts and surgical masks got out, one holding the victim at knifepoint. He ordered the coin custodian, who worked for a Minnesota man that owned the valuables, to open the sport utility vehicle and slashed its back tire.

The dealer's name was not given in the report.

UPDATE: The Orlando-Sentinal has better coverage including a photo of one of the coins.

Google book search announces new library

Google book search has an official blog, Inside Google Book Search. Announced today: The National Library of Catalonia joins the Library Project.

The libraries' website has a searchable catalog, but it was performing slowly today. The library has a lot of Catalon and Spanish-language titles.

Jewish revolt coinage at Bi-Lo grocery?

WLTX, news channel 19 from Columbia South Carolina tells us Sumter Woman Finds Possible Ancient Coin In Grocery Change.

The coin looks fake, but coin expert Ken Lyles has dated it to Bar Kokhba's revolt.

More books on Google

A bunch of new titles have been appearing on Google. Google's book search engine remains broken. Although I've found four volumes of Eckhel's Doctrina numorum veterum Google believes there is only one! It's frustrating.

DNV is important. It would be a worthwhile project to create an HTML geographical index for it.

Most public domain books can be downloaded but a few can't. Here is an interesting one: The Money of the Bible (1894), by George C. Williamson. I am becoming interested in old woodcuts of ancient coins.

Print your own money

Official PDFs of Monopoly money.

Welcome to 1922!

Robert Nagel welcomes us to 1922.

If Sonny Bono hadn't extended copyrights, the public domain have received the works of 1931 this year. Titles such as the first SNG (SNG Spencer-Churchill), George Hill's Notes on the ancient coinage of Hispania citerior, and 353 other works.

Thieves steal valuable art for scrap metal

An anonymous UPI report shows thieves in the US stealing art treasures for scrap. Dozens of bronze scuptures by John T. Scott were stolen from a warehouse in eastern New Orleans.

(Hat tip: Art Law News).

More details are given in a Times-Picayune story by Doug MacCash, 'Famed sculptor falls prey to thieves'. A followup offers a $5000 reward for information leading to the arrest and indictment of the thieeif (sic).

Photos of Scott's art are shown on the Arthur Roger Gallery web site, and there is a nice page on Scott at the Tradtional Fine Arts Organization site.

Ancient coin collectors sometimes argue that we shouldn't respect the export laws of countries which nationalized undiscovered antiquities. By buying coins we save them from the melting pot.

Even with our brick warehouses and honest police detectives art is being stolen and melted in the USA.

It wouldn't be ethical, for example, for a German to buy and keep Scott's hacked up sculptures to save them from the furnace. So the policy shouldn't be “It's always worthy to acquire smuggled goods to save them from the pot.”

Nationalized undiscovered coins are somehow different enough from named modern sculptures that different ethics should apply.

Kolbe moving sale

George Kolbe Fine Numismatic Books is having a sale. The sale started on December 9th but I just found out about it.

A 16 page PDF catalog containing 1659 lots is online. Much of the material is highly obscure, specialist stuff, on ancient and modern coinage.

Mr. Kolbe is also offering 50% off many of his own titles, for orders before December 31st. This includes Elizabeth Savage's translation of Babelon's Ancient Numismatics and it's History, which describes all the important books of the 19th century. Highly recommended.

New Malter numismatic literature auction

Malter Galleries will be auctioning 332 lots, including many important ancient titles. Closing January 7th.

Lake Books numismatic literature auction

Lake Books sale 87 is now online. 476 lots of numismatic literature. Closing February 6. Only a fraction of the lots are about ancient coins.

Copper is the new gold

USA Today reports: New rules outlaw melting pennies, nickels for profit.

People used to believe in Gresham's Law, which says “When there is a legal tender currency, bad money drives good money out of circulation”. That 'law' no longer applies — no one has the time to hoard cents and nickels. USA Today reports that a zinc cent contains 1.12 worth of metal, a 5¢ nickel is worth seven cents. The mint doesn't pay the full value for the cent — they are locked into futures contracts.

The new law makes it a crime for travellers to carry more than $5 of nickels, although $100 (face) can be shipped. Why is it a crime to hand-carry $6 of nickels but legal to ship them?

Suppose a Canadian coin dealer brings 200 nickels to a US coin show. Is it really illegal for him to bring them back in his car if he doesn't sell them? The article says violators face five years in prison. That seems like a long time. Probably violators wouldn't get that for just three nickel rolls.

The US Department of justice reports median sentencing of 4 years for rapists, 3 years for robbers, and 9 months for assault. Carrying too many pennies is more like assault than like raping/robbing, so the five years sentence will probably be unusual and reserved for the really hardened melters.

I grew up in the 70s and remember pamphlets warning me the government might declare gold illegal for US citizens to hold again, as in 1933. The fear mongers were right, just about the wrong metal. Copper is the new gold.

The New York Sale

The New York Sale auction XIV catalog is online, and includes 494 ancient coins. The auction will be held January 10th, at the New York International.

Lot 93 caught my eye. It's an 520-500 BC obol of Athens.

Google and Microsoft books searching

The Classics in Contemporary Culture blog has put together lists of Google Books on Greek and Latin literature.

(via rogueclassicism)

I've been annotating the Historia Numorum bibliography with Google Books entries, for much the same reasons. Google Books is hard to search.

Google books now has competition from Microsoft. TeleRead reported last week that Microsoft's engine can already be searched using http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=&scope=books. It works. I didn't find much there, although the British Library is supposed to be onboard.

Microsoft's search led me to Berlin banker to California numismatist, 1887-1987: oral history transcript / 1983-1987, a 326 page interview with dealer Edward Gans, founder of Numismatic Fine Arts. (Text starts about page 11).

The copyright page on the Gans manuscript clearly says the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley owns the rights. Written permission is needed for quoting and publishing. Presumably the archive.org and/or Microsoft obtained these rights? I know of no way to check. It's an interesting historical document. Probably a copy should be at the ANS library, as Gans mentions the ANS and Newell a lot. Would it be breaking the law to print a copy for the ANS library?

Portable Antiquities Scheme

The Portable Antiquities Scheme, which records all archeological objects found in England and Wales, has partnered with eBay UK in an attempt to stop sales of unregistered treasure.

The Ancient Coin Collectors Guild has sent a letter to the Scheme expressioning concerns. The text of the letter is available on the ACCG web site.

One Year Blogging

A Gift for Polydektes is one year old this week. I've done 125 posts, so about 1 post every three days. The subject matter is computers, numismatics, and digital numismatics.

I'd like to post more frequently, but I'm having a hard time finding great things to write about or link to. Most blogs link to important stories on other blogs, but there aren't many coin blogs. Wayne Sayles has some good stuff on his blog, but his posts are not frequent. The most recent is Beware the encroachment of dilettantes, about the value of amateur authors, and is worth reading.

Ed Flinn's HobbyBlog is the only ancient coin blog with regular content. Mr. Flinn posts an ancient coin with discussion nearly every day. My favorite are his coins of Anemourion featuring Artemis wrapped as a mummy (second specimen) because that coin is one of my favorite types.

Sometimes I see something that is so great I want to share it, even though it has nothing to do with coins. Professor Akiyoshi Kitaoka has created some new motion illusions, including an amazing graphic of waving purple sweet potatoes. These images appear animated, but are not.

Gemini auction

The Gemini Auction catalog is now online.

Egyptian government forcibly ejecting 3,200 families from their homes

I don't discuss current politics here. I doubt my readers care what I think about electronic voting machines, Supreme court decisions, or mid-term elections. However, these articles might be of interest.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/03/news/luxor.php
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E4EAD4C4-3393-4099-859F-D9B6AE71BD84.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6202342.stm
http://rawstory.com/news/2006/Villagers_cling_to_business_memorie_12022006.html

The Egyptian government is forcibly confiscating the homes of 3,200 families in al-Qurna town, some of whom have lived on the spot for 1000 years. Their crime? Living in homes above archeological sites.

I am not expert in archeology, urban planning, or law. Perhaps these evictions are good? Yet it seems cruel to eject families from their homes merely to allow other people to dig up the town looking for stuff. If the land is valuable, why not offer to buy it from the residents? This forced eviction has been the life dream of 'Zahi Hawass, Egypt's head of antiquities' (according to the Al Jazeera story which runs without a byline). Mr. Hawass claimed that 'archaeology is regaining its rights here'. It seems unlikely to me that archaeology had rights in the past! I suspect 'archaeology' is getting new rights.

I wonder any of the 10,000 displaced citizens had any 'life dreams' that involved keeping their homes?

(quotes from articles linked above)

'We have been living here for a thousand years,' said another resident, Alaa Ahmed, a local tour guide and one of al-Qarna's younger residents.

The government began trying to get the families to leave after World War II, but talks repeatedly bogged down. Many residents, who depend on Luxor's tourist business to earn livings, argued that new homes being offered were too small and didn't come with new jobs.

In an effort to preserve the ancient tombs, the authorities prohibited the homeowners from adding to their residences or installing modern plumbing, which forced people to bring water uphill using donkeys.

Elina Paulin-Grothe, an archaeologist involved in tomb excavation, said the best way to preserve the artifacts below is to move the residents.

Zahi Hawass, Egypt's head of antiquities, said: 'The fact that archaeology is regaining its rights here is the dream of my life. Hidden treasures are there.'

Fun While it Lasted: My Rise and Fall in the Land of Fame and Fortune

Google has scanned Bruce McNall's book Fun While it Lasted. I mentioned this book last year. Now you can search it.

Picture Book of Ancient Coins

The Million Book Project, now called The Universal Library Project, brings us another book on ancient coins.

Picture Book of Ancient Coins (1960), by Fred Reinfeld and Burton Hobson, 64 pages.

This book is part of the 'Visual History Series' and seems to be written for school children. The PDF file provided by the Archive is black-and-white and the coin images are just black blobs.

I couldn't find the original high-resolution scans, and thus can't re-encode this as a grayscale PDF. This is bad news for the Archive -- if people are to use art books, the Archive must provide them in grayscale.

Victoria and Albert Museum drops reproduction charges

The Art Newspaper is reporting that the Victoria and Albert Museum 'is to drop charges for the reproduction of images in scholarly books and magazines'.

(via BoingBoing)

The collection does have some coins. I could only find a few in the collection search engine.

Triton X

Triton X auction catalog online.

Major expansion at forgerynetwork.com

An important announcement arrived today from forgerynetwork.com:

We are pleased to announce that the entire series of The IBSCC Bulletin on Counterfeits has been incorporated into Forgerynetwork.com (http://www.forgerynetwork.com) with permission from the copyright holder.

Included are all the coins photographed, published and condemned by the IBSCC - the International Bureau of the Suppression of Counterfeit Coins. These all have been classed as 'Forgery - Published' as they have been condemned by a recognised institution and will be the first to be displayed in any search.

The database now contains almost 6000 records - 3000 of these being published counterfeits. The database is by far the largest public counterfeit coin database in the world and is now an essential tool. All purchases made should be checked against this database to help verify authenticity.

We wish to expand the database further and encourage participation, whether this be contributing items, commenting on contributions or sponsoring or making donations so we can incorporate more publised counterfeits.

Judge orders US currency redesigned

Today Judge Robertson of the United States District Court in D.C. ordered the Treasury to redesign federal currency so it can be more easily handled by the blind and visually impaired.

Discussion going on at volokh.com.

Bulgarian police break smuggling ring

Sofia Echo is reporting that Bulgarian police have broken a network that smuggled ancient coins and antiquities to the US. Three men from Sofia were caught with 14,400 ancient coins. Bulgarian police are searching the houses of accused ring members and finding ancient coins.

Obscure Press reprints

Amazon.com is offering the 1913 volume of the Numismatic Chronicle published by 'Obscure Press'.

The publisher describes the book as follows:

Originally published in 1913. Eight papers on ancient numismatics, 13 papers on medieval/modern, one on Oriental. Four Notices of Recent Publications, Index (p. 448 f), 22 plates (p. 457 f), Proceedings (p. 478 f). List of Fellows (p. 504 f). The papers on ancients are 'The Coins of Hierapolis in Phrygia', Leo Weber; 'The First Corbridge Find', H. A. Grueber; 'Chronology of the Danubian Wars of the Emperor Marcus Antonius', Rev. C. H. Dodd; 'Greek Coins acquired by the British Museum 1911-1912', G. F. Hill; 'Helena N. F.', P. H. Webb; 'Some Cretan Coins', Capt. J. S. Cameron and G. F. Hill; 'Countermarked Coins of Asia Minor', J. G. Milne; 'Some Uncertain Coins associated with Chios', J. Mavrogordato. Author: Oliver Codrinoton,M.D., And G.C. Brooke

Google Books also has a copy.

Who is Obscure Press? I don't know. Their description of 'their' book seems familiar to me, because I wrote it! The description comes from the Million Book Project page for Numismatic Chronicle 1913.

That page allows anyone to download a PDF of the volume. A Million Book user downloaded the book and sent it to a Print on Demand publisher.

I think this is a great idea. It will be an even greater idea if the Million Book Project, or Google, managed to scan in all the volumes and Obscure press figured this out well enough to create pleasant spines.

It's too bad the Royal Numismaic Society doesn't do anything like this.

If the founders of 'Obscure Press' are among my readers please tell us of your forthcoming titles in the comments section.

Collecting the Past and Illuminating the Future

Philippe de Montebello, the director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, lectured last week on antiquities collecting and will be giving the same lecture on December 7th.

"... the Director traces the history of collecting antiquities from the moment of their creation to the present day."

"... he discusses the growth of independent states and patrimony laws in the 20th century and the present controversies that have pitted source countries, archaeologists, curators, and collectors against each other. Mr. de Montebello concludes with an analysis of today's situation and the implications for the future of the Metropolitan's agreement with the Italian Government."

Last week's lecture was reviewed by The New York Sun.

Illustrations of School Classics

George Hill, former Keeper of coins at the British Museum, wrote a book Illustrations of School Classics with drawings of many coins and antiquities.

A brief biography of George Hill can be found on the wayback machine. This page was part of the International Numismatic Commission's web site when it was hosted by the ANS, but didn't make it to the new site.

Into the Antiquities Trade

Into the Antiquities Trade, by Kevin R. Cheek, Xlibris press, copyright 2003, list price $21.99 (but recently several used book web sites started selling for $2.70).

Chapter 1 describes selling ancient coins wholesale to Harlan J. Berk and visiting the Philip II exhibit at the Museum of Thessalonike in Greece. Chapters 2-3 describes illegally entering Afganistan during the Soviet occupation to buy antiquties from the Mujahideen. Chapter 4 includes attending an NFA auction and meeting people involved with the Dekadrachm Hoard.

A lot of pages discuss 'cultural property' issues. The author, an antiquities dealer and owner of Apolonia Ancient Art) takes the pro-collecting position. Chapter 5 is devoted to cultural property theory.

In chapter 6 the author is recruited by an American spy to watch for terrorists in the art world. Chapter 7 finds the author buying Cambodian antiquities from figures in the Thai military.

Chapter 8 is a return to the US, selling coins to dealer Dennis With. Mr. With turns out to be a colorful criminal.

Chapter 9 takes us to South America to buy antiquities and the discovery of secret Muslim bankers operating there.

Fakes and authenticity is discussed in chapter 10. 11 is about the Taliban blowing up the giant Buddhas. 12 covers Giacomo Medici's trial (the author takes the pro-Medici position). 13 is about that gold phile. Chapter 14 covers the trial of dealer Frederik Schultz and the legal precedent his case may have established. The final chapter is more thoughts on antiquties policy.

The best parts of the book are the author's stories of his own adventures obtaining and selling coins and antiquities. The author has a lot to say about the trials but I sometimes couldn't tell if the story presented came from other published accounts or if Cheek was giving a new inside story.

Xlibris is a print-on-demand vanity publisher. The book could have used additional proofreading. The writing is good and the first nine chapters tell good stories.

RPC Supplement 2 online

A post on Moneta-L let me know that a supplement to Roman Provincial Coinage is online.

The supplement is 110 pages and 21 MB. It can be downloaded using the browser in the usual way (shift-click, or right-click 'save target as'). Get it from http://www.uv.es/~ripolles/definitivo/web/val.htm, a personal site at the Universitat de València in Spain.

I assume this is legit. The copy is high quality, not a scan job, and the URL of the download site is in the PDF itself.

Coin of Astypalaea?

A FORVM post asked for an identification of this coin.

The reverse seems the harpa (sometimes spelled harpe), the unusual sword or sickel used by Perseus to behead Medusa. It was used by other figures, such including Saturn on this Republican denarius, Phanebal, the War Deity, and the fighters of Etenna.

If this coin is Greek, the 'C' is actually a sigma. If so, there is only one possibility for this coin, the mysterious island of Astypalaia.

Nothing seems to be known of this island in ancient times. Wikipedia helpfully says “The island had no particular importance during the ancient age.” The current population is 1238 residents, I imagine the ancient population would have been about the same. It's not a small island, either, 99 square Km.

Numismatically, the odd thing about this island is that it copied the types of Seriphos, the home of Perseus. No one knows why. All of the Perseus coins from the island that I've seen use the regular '&Sigma' sigma, so this coin is an oddity if I've identified it correctly.

Müller incorrectly attributed Alexander III staters and tetradrachms with harpa control mark to Astypalaea. Price cites Noe assigning the tetradrachms to Argos and cites Newell assigning the staters to Salamis. BCD seems to suggest the A/harpa bronzes belong to Argos, leaving Astypalaea with very few types.

There is a museum on the island with ancient coins. Perhaps one day I'll be able to visit. I'm very curious to know if they have any of their early gorgon and Perseus bronzes.

If anyone can suggest another attribution for this coin I'd be very interested.

AbeBooks.com

Sorry to leave that last post up for so long. It's a downer.

AbeBooks is a website with 100,000,000 books for sale. It consolidates the lists from 13,500 booksellers. Users can browse for authors, titles, and keywords. Results can be sorted by author, title, or price.

Results can also be sorted by 'Newest'. This is useful for finding bargains. Sellers often don't know the market and offer for prices much lower or higher than usual. For example, today I see a copy of SNG Morcom being offered for $15.

If a book is rare -- there are no other copies on AbeBooks -- it makes sense for the sellers to offer the book at some rediculously high price. Maybe shoppers won't know the price is too high, or be in too much of a hurry to care. High list prices also establish the starting point for bargaining.

There are always idiots who enter prices that are oddly high for no good reason. Why did Bob's Books list Sear GCV: Europe for $98.26 when there are plenty of copies at $60. Why did Revaluation Books (UK) offer Wheaton College Collection for $75 when copies are easily had for $6.23 and $10?

I've never sold books through AbeBooks. To become a seller, there is a $25 monthly subscription fee. I sell books (paperback fiction I didn't like) through Half.com, which is free. When listing books for sale on Half.com it tells you what other copies recently sold for. I always ignored that and tried to come 1 cent or 50 cents below the next cheapest copy. If I didn't do that, my books never sold.

If you are a writer, you need a will

Novelist Neil Gaiman points out the difficulties folks will have reprinting your work if you die without a will.

(John M. Ford, Gaiman's friend, isn't the same as John J. Ford, the numismatist).

Unintentional humorous eBay ad

eBay buys a lot of Google keywords. Chuqui shows us one that is especially inappropriate.

Lanz fall auctions

Lanz auctions 131-4 are online at sixbid.com.

Auction 131 is a specialist collection of 832 Carian coins, including some great rarities.

Auction 132 is ancients and 134 is numismatic literature.

Fellow

Yesterday I became an ANS Fellow. This is a big honor. I'm in good company; David Sear became a fellow at the same time. I had not realized I was nominated, although I see my name at the bottom of a list of 2006 Nominations for office. My biography there says I write legal websites which isn't quite true. I write numismatic websites. I also write software and patents.

Luckily I attended the presentation of Agoranomia to professor Jack Kroll and to hear the lecture by Andrew Meadows, and found out about the nomination, and the election the following day. And my suit was clean. So I went, and was elected Fellow.

Fellows get to vote at the ANS meeting, but it's a one-party system. Fellows vote yes/no on the board's recommendations. There is no electioneering or campaign speeches at the annual meeting.

Burachkov's Catalogue of Coins of the Greek Colonies on the Coast of S. Russia, &c.

I received a PDF of Burachkov's Catalogue of Coins of the Greek Colonies on the Coast of S. Russia, &c. (1884) today from a Ukranian visitor to my web site. It's in Russian. I wanted it for the 32 plates of line drawings, several of which were cited in Historia Numorum.

My intention is to extract the plates from the PDF and place them as navigable .JPGs on the web site, linking the citiations in Historia Numorum to the correct plate in Burachkov.

The PDF is large — 124 MB — so I can't place the whole book on the site. If anyone wants to take a crack at OCRing this Russian-language title, or just wants a PDF to read, let me know and I'll mail you a CD-ROM.

http://www.michelvanrijn.nl/ has shut down

Michel van Rijn's artnews site has shut down.

The site claims it was shut down after receiving photo-threats against one of his children.

It was a good site. van Rijn bravely kept the site up in the face of threats against his own life. With the site gone, there is nowhere for disgruntled looters to inform on each other.

Looters — please don't send your dirty laundry to this blog. I don't have many incriminating audio tapes to protect me from the 'art world'!

(via PhDiva and ancients.info)

Electrum coin of Alexander the Great?

Here is the description of a small electrum coin from Imhoof-Blumer's 1883 book, Monnaies Grecques page 465:

35. El. 10m. Gr. 1,965, limée. – Tête diadémée d’Alexandre le Grand? à g.
Rx. Moissonneur, à dr., dans le même costume, se baissant pour couper le blé avec la faucille. Devant lui cinq, derrière lui trois épis debout. Cab. de France. Pellerin, Rois p. 208, vign. Rec. III, p. 3, pl. 86; Eckhel, D. N. V. IV, p. 25; Mion VI, 34, 269; Lenormant, Rois Grecs, p. 160, pl. LXXXI, I.

Imhoof-Blumer is describing uncertain coins of Asia Minor.

In English, a 1.97g electrum coin, obverse Hd. of Alexander the Great facing left, reverse "Harvester" facing r., in the same costume (short chiton with pointed bonnet), bending down to cut corn with sickle. In front of him five, behind him three ears upright.”

The coin isn't pictured in Imhoof-Blumer's book, and because it is uncertain I don't know what mint to look under in more recent books for a picture. I don't know what the word "limée" means.

Anyway, it seems odd to me that an electrum coin would feature Alexander III. Does anyone recall if this coin type ever earned a more reasonable attribution? I searched ISEGRIM for electrum and gold coins but with people on the reverse but didn't find any with sickle or wheat.

Index to BCD Peloponnesos

Coins of Peloponnesos: The BCD Collection gets my vote for numismatic book of the year. Although only an auction catalog, it has better text and more interesting coins than anything else I've seen - so far - this year.

The coins themselves are searchable on coinarchives but the printed book itself contains a great deal of descriptive text, new theories, etc.

Today I was looking for coins of Cranii [= Kranion] from the island of Cephallenia [= Kefalonia or Kephallonia] in the catalog. There aren't any coins from the island, but it took me a while to figure this out. I could have realized this a lot faster if I'd used the downloadable index to BCD Peloponnesos. Highly recommended.

I have acquired the catalogs of all of the BCD auctions. The others are Boeotia, Euboea, and Corinth. This collection will be an important reference in the future, at least as important as SNG von Aulock is for Asia Minor, and the volumes are must-haves for collectors of Greek coins.

Trio of matching fourrees

Today's photo shows three ancient counterfeits, all taken from the same dies. The first has intact plating — it was sold as an official mint issue.

Weights 1.57g, 1.97g, 1.99g.

I purchased these over the course of several years. I also have a fourth example, of the same workshop but of another die pair.

Because these coins are from the same workshop any differences in them come from corrosion in the ground and manufacturing variations at the “mint.&rdquo Having three pieces securely from the same mint might be able to illuminate details of the forger's art. Perhaps in a few years when it gets cheaper I'll be able to test them for composition. For example, is the silver plating of uniform composition? Are the copper cores similar in composition? (They certainly aren't in weight.) Maybe these little coins can tell us something about counterfeiting tech in the 3rd-4th centuries BC.

Vinh Phuc: Antiques sold as scrap

Vietnam net Bridge reports Antiques sold as scrap.

These are not classical antiquities, just 400 year old bronze kettles. “The excavators broke the antiques into small pieces and sold them as scrap” for seven dollars and fifty cents per kilogram.

Does this happen all the time? “In 1987, Minh excavated a jar with about 20 kg ancient coins. He used the jar to store rice, and gave the coins to children to play games.”

In stories from the Far East, 'ancient coins' usually means 400-year-old cast 'cash' (the coins with the square holes.)

Dr. Busso Peus auction

The Dr. Busso Peus auction catalogs arrived in the mail yesterday.

The usual wonderful ancients, but also 754 lots of books, many of which I covet. The catalog is online.

Orphan Works Legislation Dead

Photo District News is reporting that the 'Orphan Works Legislation' has been killed, mostly by the photographer's lobby.

An 'Orphan Work' is one whose copyright owner cannot be found. The proposed legislation was going to allow publishers to reprint works if they promised to give the profits to the copyright holder should the author or estate show up to claim it.

(via TeleRead).

Often I'm reading an out-of-print, hard-to-find book and decide it's wonderful and should be introduced to a new generation of readers. It's worthy of a reprint. Unfortunately, no publisher will touch an in-copyright book unless the rights-holder can be found, thus depriving publishers of money and readers of pleasure. So no reprint. Wait for a copy to appear at auction, or beg a photocopy from someone willing to infringe.

Sometimes the author dies or disappears while the book is in print. Authors Registry keeps a list of authors due more than $100,000 in royalties that cannot be found. In some cases this list is rediculous (they claim not to be able to find Bob Dylan) but in most cases the estate is just so clueless as to not know they are entitled to $100,000.

Cut Portion of a Silver Dekadrachm

FORVM is offering for sale a cut dekadrachm. The sales blurb suggests that it was cut in ancient times to make change.

A few months ago FORVM offered a dazzling collection of cut coins on eBay, including this and an archaic octodrachm of Abdera. There were so many cut specimens that some lots included more than one piece!

Here are some samples:

Greek Silver - 4 Cut Coins

Kings of Cyprus, Eulthon, 560 - 525 B.C.

2 Cut Ancient Coins, Acanthos? Kelenderis?

Lot of Ten Cut Greek Silver

The eBay buyer is apparently finished with the dekadrachm and is selling on consignment. (I can't recall how much this piece sold for on eBay. I remember a price in the $400s but perhaps am thinking of the octodrachm).

The surprising thing about the dekadrachm is that it is a Hellenistic-era coin. Usually cut coins are very early. Before coinage rough bits of 'hacksilber' were used and some early coins were cut up when they reached pre-coinage regions to join the hacksilber. No word on where all the cut pieces came from, or if they were found together -- did someone collect these over decades, or did they all surface in a single hoard?

It is surprising that this cut piece is so pleasingly centered on Zeus. In The Medici Conspiracy pleasing breaks on Greek vases are a sign of foul play. That shouldn't be an issue here, as no one is claiming that this dekadrachm broke while it was in the ground. It was purposely cut in antiquity, probably by someone who respected Zeus.

(FORVM claims copyright on the photo, used here without permission.)

SCOTVS CAPITIS

New ancient coin blog: SCOTVS CAPITIS. I don't know the blogger, but he is the guy who digitally 'colorized' Roman coins.

Monnaies Grecques by Imhoof-Blumer

An important book, Monnaies Grecques (1883) by Imhoof-Blumer recently appeared on Google.

Just last week I made a special trip to the ANS to examine their copy. But of course that copy was too fragile to photocopy, so I ended up copying paragraphs longhand in a language I don't understand. Not fun. Furthmore, plate J includes a unique coin that I badly wanted a picture of. I usually bring a digital camera to the library to take pictures of fragile book pages but forgot.

So 'yeah!' to Google.

You can download a PDF copy (15.3M), but it won't have text and won't be searchable. If you have access it's better to read it online.

I recently made a CD-ROM for an acquiantance of various public-domain numismatic PDFs from Google. It came to 550MB. Google uses low-ish resolution and compresses agressively so a single CD can contain over 30 books. Next time I make such a CD it will include this classic.

Also new is De la valeur des monnaies romaines (1879) by Emile Levasseur.

The Medici Conspiracy

I recently finished The Medici Conspiracy by Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini. It's good. It's about crooked antiquities dealer Giacomo Medici and the various looters and fronts he worked with.

There is nothing in this book about coins or coin dealers except for a few paragraphs about Bruce McNall, and that part contained an error (calling Athenian dekadrachms 'the world's rarest coin.')

I like to assume that the ancient coins I buy are not looted, smuggled, then fenced half-a-dozen-times to create a confusing trail before reaching the collector. From this book it seems that vases enter the market exactly that way, and are purposly broken and re-assembled as well! I always assumed that a dirty market couldn't exist, that markets self-police and the 'clean' dealers get fed up with the mad profits the looters made and inform on them. I guess that doesn't happen, at least not for Greek vases? I'm still a supporter of a healthy legal market as a way to avoid the excesses of criminals, but the market's self-policing sure failed in the cases discussed in this book.

In recent news, Medici is offering Italy 'Object X' in exchange for stopping his trial. He won't say what Object X is, just that it's really cool and valuable and stuff.

RPC IV Online

The University of Oxford has put RPC IV online. This is a big deal, as it hasn't even been published yet! The best database for provincial coins of the Antonines (138-193AD), with 9,061 images; 13,730 types; and 46,725 total specimens.

http://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/.

It's very handy and easy to use. The only oddness is that there is no way to specify if a search is to be done over the 9000 images or the 46,000 specimens. One does the search, then gets an option to go back and change the search settings.

The RPC numbers are provisional. However, for each result it will give other publications of the coin, so except for previously unpublished pieces there will be a safe, usable catalogue number.

New York Invitational Coin Show

I went to the New York Invitational Coin Show yesterday. Although advertised as 100 tables, there were about 20 dealers. One dealer told me that some dealers skipped Friday because of Rosh Hashanah (and perhaps low attendance?) The room was set up for 100 tables so looked pathetically empty.

The ancients dealers were Freeman&Sear, Herakles, Barry Murphy, Smythe, and Dr. Saslow. (Louis DiLauro was there but didn't bring his ancients!)

Other years there have been many more dealers. I was also disappointed that there was no weekend day -- who wants to take a vacation day to see such a small show?

The dealers were grumbling about the venue -- the fifth floor of some old building. The room itself seemed fine to me. Usually NYC coin shows are held in hotels, because there is no nearby parking or security otherwise. Who wants to walk around the streets with $$$ in coins and heavy display cases?

What is 'cashsoldier.com'?

snible.org's provider, linuxwebhost.com, gives me statistics about how much traffic I receive and where it's coming from.

When uesrs visit snible.org through links (rather than bookmarks) the pageview rank is:

36% from cashsoldier.com
29% from other snible.org pages
10% from google.com, google UK, and google Canada
6% from wildwinds.com
2% from adblusky.com
1% from yahoo search

I'm certain the traffic from Wildwinds is people seeking ancient coin info. I get slightly more traffic from Google. I don't know the terms the Google visitors want, but I expect a lot of them are looking for coin and ancient greece info.

I was surprised to see cashsoldier.com in the top spot. 9185 requests for 'VerifyerLevel.php' from them. Some kind of bot or malware trying to hack me?

Requests from them just started this month. A few web sites have cashsoldier and VerifyLevel.php in their logs, but I haven't seen any report of what is trying to be accomplished by requesting that file from me 9000+ times.

PS This week is the New York Invitational Coin Show. No weekend hour for this show &mdash it's Wednesday through Friday. I am not sure I want to take a vacation day to attend a coin show. If I had a day for coins I'd rather go to the ANS library. Any readers going to the show?

Google Image Labeler

I've been playing a game called Google Image Labeler. Visitors are connected to another player, picked at random, and are then presented with a series of images. To score, the player must guess how the other player will describe the picture.

This is usually easy, as most of the pictures can be described as 'man', 'woman', 'people', 'building', 'stars', 'moon', 'weather', 'text', 'windows', or 'web site'. The fun comes from odd images that are difficult to describe.

Today while playing I encountered a picture of an ancient coin. After a few false stats my partner and I agreed upon the description of 'broken'. The picture, which can be seen above, comes from the Archeological Museum of Kazan State University in Tarterstan, Russia.

An hour ago I didn't know that there was a 'Tarterstan'! Another part of the fun of a game like Google Image Labeler is the chance to be exposed to random websites that one would never otherwise encounter.

Copyright, e-Sylum, need advice

Science fiction author Cory Doctorow has a nice essay on copyright on Locus Magazine's web site.

My reply to Kerry Rodgers and Bob Knepper on copyright and images of collectables appeared yesterday on the e-Sylum (a numismatic book email list). This week's e-Sylum isn't available on the website yet, but will be soon. Or subscribe.

Need advice: This blog didn't appear in The Celator's round-up of ancient coin blogs. Perhaps I am not promoting it correctly. Where is a good place to announce and promote coin blogs?

U.S. extends Cypriot antiquity import restrictions

U.S. extends Cypriot antiquity import restrictions.

Photos of the types of banned imports can be seen on the web site for the 2002 agreement with Cyprus, and don't include coins.

Hackers attacking ancients.info?

Attempts to visit ancients.info are either not being answered or coming up reading 'by kuwait hacker'.

Ancients.info hosts an ancient coins discussion site and photo databases. I visit nearly every day. The site is run by Bill Puetz, who also designed and runs Vcoins. Vcoins does not appear hacked but was responding slowly, possibly because it shares resources with ancients.info.

This doesn't seem to be an attack on this specific site; Google reports 46,000 sites with 'kuwait hacker' in the text. Most of these are defaced sites, a few are discussion sites asking about it. Seems to be a mass attack on Linux-based web sites?

The oldest mention I found is this post on flarf.com announcing the founding of a Kuwait hacker organization.

PDF downloads from Google Print

Google is now letting anyone (in the US only?) download PDFs of many public domain numismatic books. I see BMC Sicily (6.2 MB), BMC Macedonia (4.7 MB), BMC Corinth (7.4 MB), BMC Parthia (11 MB).

Folks on other websites are saying all the public-domain books are available this way. At least one, Coins of the Greek and Scythic Kings of Bactria and India isn't, probably because oddities in scanning would make that volume huge.

PS: I didn't post last week because I was on vacation in western Newfoundland. I highly recommend it. There is a nice museum and tour that shows how the Vikings smelted bog iron to make nails.

Panormus or Probus?

Here we have a fake coin from Roman sicily, taken from an eBay Germany private auction closing on Saturday. Coinarchives has a real specimen from a Nachfolger auction.

It's tough to get this coin without Medusa's face worn smooth, so if genuine this coin would be valuable. The presumably genuine Nachfolger example sold for 300 euros (plus buyers fee) in 2003.

The forger made an obvious mistake. Not realizing the obverse depicts Athena, the forger has given the head the features of the emperor Probus, including beard! The auction text says the coin depicts Cato! With spelling errors: "bearbed and elmated head of CATO".

The seller is also auctioning a coin of Iaetia with a similar reverse. It looks much better and would have fooled me. The Iaetia fake has the same triskeles legs as the Panormus, but the gorgoneion is at a different angle, suggesting some kind of partial hubbing.

A number of artistic works were involved in the making of this fake. It seems struck, so someone cut a die. Someone used the die to strike a coin. The striking probably wasn't creative, but choosing a color for the false patina probably was. Then someone took a picture of the fake wrote the phony description about Cato.

When I post a picture of this coin I might be infringing the copyright of those three people. Maybe I'm just engaging in "fair use." This seems unlikely, though, because I'm copying the entire artistic work, not just a portion of it.

Copyright law doesn't have an anti-fraud or anti-forgery exemption. I'm probably breaking the law by showing you this fake. What protects me is the unlikelyness of some shady characters in Germany wanting to draw more attention to their crimes by taking me to court demanding I pay them for use of their "artwork."

For my readers who think it is always immoral to use another's copyrighted image without permission, I apologize for this post. I've let you down. I should have asked the seller for permission to expose his fraud.

I could have merely linked to the eBay auction. However, eBay's picture will vanish soon after the auction closes and I wanted a public record of this fake beyond Saturday. There is another reason. You'll note I didn't link to the auction itself. This is because it is considered immoral by many collectors to directly expose eBay sellers to fraud accusations before the seller shows himself to be a repeat offender. I'd rather put up a copyrighted image than levy fraud accusations against a seller previously unknown to me.

Copyright extension is a real problem for numismatic research.

To give an idea of copyright length, Percy Gardner wrote BMC Seleucid in 1879, but didn't die until the 1930s. His works are public domain in the US, but won't be in Britain until next year. George Hill wrote BMC Lycia in 1897, but didn't die until the late 1940s. His books won't be free for more than a decade in Britain. ESG Robinson wrote BMC Cyrenaica in 1927, but didn't die until the 1970s. Most of us won't live to see that book free.

The books were never published in the US, and are legally considered 'unpublished' here.

The BMC Greek volumes are at least in print — but not in Britian or the US. The reprints come from Italy. I have no idea if the Italian publisher licensed them or just prints without permission.

Libaries won't photocopy books if they are still in copyright (they'll often let patrons photocopy the books, although there is a sign explaining the illegality of thee action.) Some books are a century old, still in copyright, but too brittle to let library patrons photocopy. Or the books are so rare that no libary within 200 miles has the title. The book comes up for auction maybe once or twice a year at Kolbe or Charles Davis. They never appear on used book web sites. These books you just can't get.

The lack of access to scholarship is a problem for new research. No one wants to write about coins without having read the important papers or books on the topic. But the books are often unobtainable, and photocopies are difficult to obtain and expensive.

There is a profit to be made for someone, reprinting the works. Unfortunately, most numismatic works are copyrighted and it's illegal to reprint the works without permission. Asking for that permission proves difficult.

Unlike Best-selling fiction authors who register with rights organizations and wait for the phone to ring, lessor authors cannot be traced. It isn't like real estate, where the government keeps a list of who-owns-what. In fact, it would be illegal for the government to keep track of who owns what book! Yes, that's right, there is a treaty that makes it illegal for any government to require copyrights be registered.

Copyright is established by a chain of book contracts and wills going back to the author. Neither the book contracts nor the wills are public records. Hopeful publishers start by writing to the publisher of the first edition asking for rights information. They also try to contact folks named in the authors obituary, asking about wills. If the author has been dead for a few generations this can get expensive. Of course, if the book was written in the course of business, like the BMC volumes, the author's employer may also have a claim.

So everyone photocopies books, or, if the books aren't around, another researcher's photocopies. It may be illegal to photocopy books, but there is a good economic argument to commit copyright crime. It is cheaper to get sued for photocopying and lose in court than it is to hire a detective to track down an author's estate.

I'd like to see legislation allowing anyone to reprint any out-of-print copyrighted work with an agreement to put a small amount, $5 or $10, into escrow for the title. The copyright holder can come forward when the money raised for a title makes it worthwhile.

Two classics by Percy Gardner

Google brings us The Coins of the Greek and Scythic Kings of Bactria and India in the British Museum (1886) by Percy Gardner.

Although not officially part of BMC Greek (it's volume 1 of BMC India) it looks just like the BMC Greek volumes and covers Greek coinage.

Plates begin here.

I'm happy to see this; I have an Indian reprint which is low-quality (smudgey newsprint) and nearly unusuable. There seems to be some problems with the plates here — when you can see them they are high quality but parts are missing. Perhaps the original is brittle and falling apart?

Even if your local library has these fragile original it often makes sense to use Google's copy avoiding further damage to the original. Rather than destroying the originals I'd prefer to see them archived in giant warehouses in Alaska north of the frost line.

Also new is A Grammar of Greek Art (1905) by Percy Gardener. I'd purchased a cheap original on eBay with the intention of scanning the coin chapter and some of the clip-art (it's hard to find copyright free Greek clip art for school presentations, etc). Now I won't have to. The chapter on coins is Chapter XVI: Coins in Relation to History.

Catalogue of the McClean collection of Greek coins

Catalogue of the McClean collection of Greek coins, Fitzwilliam Museum. Provided by ABZU (whatever that is. It's at the University of Michigan).


Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3

Hundreds of plates! However, the plates are low-quality .gifs, even using the "large" option. Unlike yesterday's BMC Cyprus, there is no way to get high-resolution .tifs for better manual processing.

BMC Cyprus online

UC Berkeley's 'Ebind' project has put George Hill's BMC Cyprus (1904) online.

Plate quality is terrible, though.