STEVE ROACH ON ONLINE NUMISMATIC RESOURCES

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V19 2016 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 19, Number 12, March 20, 2016, Article 9

Steve Roach published a nice article in Coin World March 18, 2016 about the recent improvements in available online resources for numismatists. With permission, here it is, -Editor

Online resources to assist collectors to buy coins and learn more about coins in their collections keep getting better. From the American Numismatic Association’s recent digitization of more than a century of its publication The Numismatist, to the Newman Numismatic Portal’s scanning of more than 100,000 pages from more than 3,000 coin-related publications, more information is available to researchers than ever before.

The largest coin firms continue to break new ground, from Professional Coin Grading Service making its PCGS CoinFacts website free to the almost continuous enhancements to Numismatic Guaranty Corp.’s website as it expands to help collectors around the world.

Stack’s Bowers Galleries announced on March 8 that it would launch an entirely new, integrated technology platform including an enhanced website along with mobile and tablet apps. As Stack’s Bowers President Brian Kendrella explained, “The new platform is completely integrated, meaning that your interaction and experience will be the same regardless of if you are accessing our auctions from your home computer or mobile device.” He added that the site will soon include an expanded want-list feature, grading service population reports, and price guides.

Perhaps most exciting to collectors is the improved sales results at the Stack’s Bowers Galleries website that currently include more than 200,000 past prices and will expand to include past Bowers and Merena, Stack’s, American Numismatic Rarities and Teletrade records. This and the Heritage Auctions archive of nearly 2 million rare coin sales and nearly half a million paper money auctions, are powerful resources that will continue to redefine provenance research for decades to come.

It’s truly an exciting time for collectors. In researching this month’s cover story on the 1933 Saint-Gaudens double eagle, I looked to the archived issues of The Numismatist from the 1940s to today, and the ads seeking examples and offering them for sale, little mentions buried in coin club meeting recaps, to broad features by hobby greats like Robert Julian, David T. Alexander and Q. David Bowers all helped me find new perspectives to share this fascinating story.

Here's a link to Steve's great article on the 1933 double eagles. -Editor

The 1933 Saint-Gaudens gold $20 double eagle is a coin that captures the imagination, with a story that wraps in international intrigue, glamorous auctions and legal battles, and each twist and turn seems to present more questions. It been the subject of several mainstream books, and television shows including a documentary produced for the Smithsonian Institution and an episode of The Closer. In Coin World alone since 2009 I’ve written nearly 100,000 words on a family’s quest to keep 10 examples it, allegedly discovered in a family’s safe deposit box years ago, against the government’s interest in reclaiming what it sees as stolen government property.