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V4 2001 INDEX       E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 4, Number 53, December 30, 2001, Article 6 SPECIALTY CATALOGUES Bob Lyall writes: "You ask for top catalogue in a specialty. I nominate Fred Pridmore Part 1, West Indies, (auctioneer Glendining & Co, London, cataloguer A H Baldwin & Sons Ltd, London) 21st September 1981. (And please don't say Ray Byrne -- the West Indian specialist collectors wouldn't agree). This was the first part of three sales of "Coins of the British Commonwealth of Nations" (actually including quite a lot of tokens) spanning 1981, 1982 and 1983." Bob Dunfield of Tradewind Books writes: "Regarding the top ten reference catalogs, I would nominate the Guthrie-Bothamley catalog of Mexican Revolutionary Coinage, 1913-1917, Superior Stamp & Coin Co., Inc., 1976. This has become a standard reference for this series, as you probably know. Bill Bischoff writes: "I have one candidate to nominate, namely the Swiss Bank Corporation's Coins of Peru (Zuerich, Auction 20, September 14 and 15, 1988). Some coins from the period after Independence are included, but the bulk of the 1,356 lots is drawn from the mints of the Spanish Colonial Viceroyalty of Peru -- Lima, La Plata, and, especially, Potosi. Subsequent research has modified some of the cataloguing, of course. (For example, experts no longer believe it is possible to distinguish between the short-lived (1574 only) La Plata issues and those of Potosi from 1575 on.) For the sake of completeness the inclusion of Cartagena and Bogota would have been desirable, but Sellschop, whose collection underlay the auction, seems not to have been interested in those mints. Still, the coins described and profusely illustrated here were the basis for the Grunthal/Sellshopp Coinage of Peru handbook published in 1978, and they stand out for their high quality (none, as far as I can see, were from sea salvage, the source of the vast majority of macuquinas that come on the market today). Sellshopp started collecting these pieces long before there was a real market for them: hence it's unlikely that any one individual would be able to put together a comparable corpus today." Allan Davisson writes: "Definitive sales on particular series? Some of the most exciting (and expensive) volumes in my library are sale catalogs. They are also some of the most useful volumes. The British series is rich in well produced and scholarly sale catalogs with fine plates. Murdoch and Montague at the turn of the century should be on every serious British numismatic bibliophile's shelf. The mid-century Lockett sales are equally impressive and equally important. But, important as Lockett is, other British sales have their place as well. Many years ago I published a list of the fifty most important British sale catalogs (for which I owe a great vote of thanks to an enthusiastic British colleague). I frequently pull down my custom bound set of Norweb sales when I wonder about a particular rarity. Ten on British hammered coins? In no particular order: Murdoch, Montague, Ryan, Lockett, Norweb, Doubleday, Grantley, Carlyon-Britton, Rashleigh, and, finally, though not a sale catalog, the corpus of catalogs published over six years in the latter part of the 1990's by the late Patrick Finn. But what is the best catalog? It all depends on what you are doing at the moment. I have just finished cataloging an important collection of hammered crowns of Charles I. The November 2001 Spink sale of the Van Roekel collection was extremely helpful. This was a thoroughly catalogued sale with most of the varieties represented. In recent years it is arguably the "best" for this series. But the 1978 "West Country Collector" sale held by Glendining offered and illustrated the collection F. R. Cooper formed and used as the basis for his definitive work on the series. I turned to that as often as I turned to Van Roekel. But it has also been convenient to have Paget and Lingford on hand. At the risk of being immodest, our catalog of Viking coins several years ago, our offering of the John Perry Celtic collection and our offering of Wayne Anderson's 18th century token collection still provide me with a record that I regularly use." On the topic of United States numismatics, Mark Van Winkle, Chief Cataloger for Heritage writes: "In response to your question about the top ten definitive reference catalogs, Heritage has just published a definitive catalog on Liberty Double Eagles. The coins will be sold at the FUN Sale in January and the catalog is all-color (a first for Heritage), and 100 hardbound copies were also printed (another first for Heritage). I believe the most comprehensive catalog on Dimes by die variety is Stack's Lovejoy Collection, and Superior's Robinson Sales are still the best for early Cents. For proof gold, Ed Trompeter's sales in Superior (2/92) and Heritage's offerings of his Tens and Twenties are still definitive. Speaking of proof gold, Heritage also offered a complete set of high grade matte proof gold in the 1994 ANA Sale with updated information on the numbers believed extant of each issue by Jim Halperin. Heritage also sold what has to be the most complete set of Class I, II, and III branch mint proof Morgans in the 1995 ANA Sale. Those are the ones that I can think of off the top of my head, and I look forward to reading what others believe are definitive catalogs."

Wayne Homren, Editor

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