SimonW

I have no doubt that you have the expertise. The problem, however, is that we don't have the same resources that your company must have had building a system critical for many other companies. For this reason, my call to let me know if anyone has not only good ideas, but also isn't afraid of helping with the work it takes to implement them. Can you provide an example? I am sure that you can improve the results by optimizing your search term using the right operators.

There are multiple archives, at least for the major auctions of the past 2 decades. I don't think there will ever be one that covers all numismatic auctions for two reasons: 1) copyrights and 2) it's a huge amount of work to digitize printed catalogs. Collecting all sales records online is probably not as easy as you think. Creating a crawler for a single website is easy and quickly done, I agree. But if you have to create and maintain individual crawlers for many different websites (keep in mind that they don't store the entire site like Google, etc. does, but need to extract certain data and feed it into a database) the amount of work quickly grows. Especially when they have a lot of code updates and/or use JavaScript. For now, yes. But please keep in mind that biddr is not an auction archive. It's an auction platform and old records may get removed at some point for performance reasons. This is where acsearch and all the other auction archives come into play 🙂 Pecunem was only the auction platform, not the auction house. The auction houses that used Pecunem were Numismatik Naumann (formerly Gitbud & Naumann) and Solidus Numismatik. The auctions of both of them can be found on acsearch and other auction archives. Frank's auctions have been available on biddr for the past 3 years. And for the same time their data has been collected for acsearch, although not (yet) visible to the public. We are collecting the auction data of more auction houses than you may be aware of. This data is either not publicly available because we haven't asked the copyright holder(s) for permission yet, or because we weren't granted permission when we did ask them in the past. We still collect it in case we get permission at any time in the future. That's correct. The search basically works like a text search, but instead of text it uses certain image features to search an index of image features. Since the image search has been mentioned quite a few times, please note that everyone with a premium account has 5 free image searches per day included. Quite the contrary, the search allows very complex queries if you use it correctly. It's often not the search that is limited but the understanding of the individual using it. Please read the How to. The search by catalog reference is easily achievable with the proximity search operator as described in the other thread. That would be a nice feature. It's basically a Thesaurus for catalog references. Although I see some potential problems (e.g. one catalog reference may be broader [cover multiple types] than another and, thus, lead to a less effective search). So this would need to be an option you can turn on/off. As an alternative, search for one reference to see what other references there are and then use the group operator to search for all references you found at once. I agree, it would be nice if the search knew all this and automatically searched for both. I even think a conditional Thesaurus wouldn't be too hard to implement. The only problem is that all this knowledge would have to be fed in first, for all numismatic areas. As an alternative, you can achive the same with the group operator, if you have the knowledge. The problem is that fakes are usually removed because of certain legal implications. And if they haven't been removed before the data enters the archives, I imagine that an auction house won't be uber happy if we put a big red border around the fakes they had in their auctions. In the end, it's their data and they decide if it stays in the archive or not. There's a fine line. The data of acsearch is what makes it valuable and, thus, is not sold or given away in its entirety. But I believe you won't need 10 million auctions records. I am happy to provide a good sample (I believe 1% is more than enough) to anyone who is interested. I think that's the main problem. I like many of your ideas, but who is going to put in the all the work? If anyone is willing to get their hands dirty and put in some actual work (e.g. by manually labeling data to train an AI model), let me know. I am the first one who will support you 🙂

I am starting this thread since I didn't want to let all the great comments here unanswered. Please feel free to post feedback, discuss ideas, etc. in this thread.

When did this thread become about acsearch? 🙂 I am happy to answer all questions and listen to ideas for improvments. I do, however, not want to hijack @mordehaus thread about his new application and will, thus, keep my answer short. Please be assured that I have read all comments and ideas, nonetheless. If you have further questions, ideas or feedback, please open a new thread and I will gladly jump on it. One search operator that is very powerful and barely used is the proximity search operator described here (https://www.acsearch.info/howto.html). When I am searching for a certain catalog reference (e.g. Hadrian RIC 9), my search query looks like this: Hadrian "RIC 9"~2. This ensures that the search only returns results were RIC and 9 are no further away from each other than 2 words, which works amazingly good. If you add the denomination on top of that, you will almost certainly have mainly perfect matches (as long as the descriptions are correct). There are many other helpful search operators. Check out the How to page on acsearch.

Naville, unfortunately, insist on doing their auctions manually, meaning that the speed and timing constantly change. @Jay GT4, can you send us a message through our contact form with the bids that didn't execute so that I can look into this?

Here's another mystery. Some years ago I purchased the following two provincial Tesserae. Both very thin and light, which - in comination with their style and fabric - is the reason I would place them in the 3-4 century AD. They remind me of the (much smaller) Tesserae from Nicopolis ad Istrum (?) showing different obverse motivs combined with three stars and crescent on the reverse, all holed (I plan to show some of them later on in this thread). Anonymous, Tessera (17-19 mm, 1.45 g), Asia Minor, uncertain, 3rd-4th century AD (?). Obv. Rooster standing left; above, dolphin swimming left; in front, grain ear. Rev. Blank. Anonymous, Tessera (18-20 mm, 0.92 g), Asia Minor, uncertain, 3rd-4th century AD (?). Obv. Lion standing left; above, amphora containig grain ears or flowers (?); below, round shield. Rev. Blank. Only recently I was able to purchase a third one, clearly from the same series, but with a Julian-Claudian (?) portrait: Anonymous, Tessera (20 mm, 1.20 g), Asia Minor, uncertain, 3rd-4th century AD (?). Obv. Julian-Claudian head, laureate, left (Tiberius?); left, crayfish (?); right, dolphin. Rev. Blank. I wasn't able to locate any of them in the major literature. Does anyone here have another piece of this highly interesting series or has ever seen any in any numismatic publication?

I was told that the coin was first with Bucephalus were a picture was taken and added to the next auction file. The consignor, however, then decided to consign it to Numismad and Bucephalus forgot to remove the coin from their auction file. They have now removed the coin.

Both Numismad and Bucephalus have been very responsibly in the past. I am sure there's a simple explanation to it. I'll let you know as soon as I hear back from them.

Thank you, @ambr0zie, that explains it. I already started to search the trash and spam folders as I thought we may have missed your message 🙂 Please note that the "Report error" form will send your message to the auction house. If you would like to reach out to us, please use the contact form instead. A responsible and trustworthy environment is of particular importance to us. We, thus, always try to resolve issues like this as quickly as possible.

We definitely do. If the company is not a well-known and established auction house, we ask not only for commercial register excerpts and proof of identity, but also for trade references and check whether the person(s) has/have been active in coin trading before and has/have the necessary experience. Of course, there is always a certain residual risk with new companies.

Thank you for bringing this up @Harry G. We will look into it. @ambr0zie, did you send an email or contact us through the web form? We haven't received any message regarding this so far.

Thank you everyone for the nice comments on acsearch. I am happy it is helpful to some here. There have been a few minor updates lately. Besides the one @Severus Alexander already mentioned, the most important one is probably the revised bookmark list, where you can now choose between list and gallery view and change the order of the items via drag & drop.

I do as I have no other explanation for LEG X[I]V. Although I agree that a bull would make more sense, I think the head is too big (in relation to the rest of the body) for a bull. It looks a bit like a French bulldog to me 🙂 I agree, I'd say it's early 2nd century. Thank you, @Aleph. Thank you very much, @Severus Alexander. Now that is interesting. I've never heard of this before. I'll try to find the article and will look into it.

The following Tessera is a bit of a mistery to me and seems to be unrecorded in the major literature. Anonymous, Tessera (15 mm, 2.18 g), Rome, 1st-2nd century AD. Obv. LEG / XIV (?), raven standing right. Rev. AP / [...], dog standing right. There are two similar pieces, but with LEG XV: https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=6840687 https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=9777536 The second piece shows that the reverse has some letters in the exergue, too, although I can not tell which exaclty (except for an S maybe). What I find odd is both the variation of the legion (XIV & XV, while everything else seems to be identical) and the choice of animals (raven and dog). Does anyone have any further information or an idea what the purpose was, why it shows a raven and a dog, what the full reverse legend is (or could be) and what it means?

Discussions on the ethics of bidding should be allowed in my opinion. Even political discussions per se are not a problem as long as the interaction is respectful and other opinions are tolerated. @Severus Alexander is one of the most respectful and considerate people I know. In that context, a little digression should be fine 🙂

It shows Tiber crowned with reeds on the obverse and she-wolf with twins on the reverse (RIC 18). The Tiber/she-wolf group is one of the rarest among the anonymous Quadrantes. There are multiple subtypes with both Tiber left and right, she-wolf left and right (as well as some other smaller variations). Within this group, Tiber left is much rarer than Tiber right. Although RIC says "only" R, this is the first piece with Tiber left that I see offered on the market since I started collecting fractions about 15 years ago. @Severus Alexander, I'll send you a PM later today 🙂

Thank you very much, @Severus Alexander 🙂 And congratulations on your great Tarsos Alex Tetradrachm! I'd disagree on this one. A free market economy doesn't work this way. But more importantly: who is to decide who (the well-heeled or the less well-heeled buyer) "deserves" a coin and who should or should not be bidding?

Good question, @Severus Alexander. I can't talk for others, but I am just not that disciplined 🙂 That's why I don't set myself a "hard" limit in the first place. Instead, I usually have a rough range in mind. Many times I even go beyond that and keep bidding until I feel the next bid realy hurts. This said, I usually don't regret the coins I've bought, but the ones I didn't. It also greatly depends on the coin. Is it one that I "must have" or one that would be "nice to have". In the area I collect and try to complete, there are many rare types that only turn up on the market every 10, 20 or so years and I usually don't want to risk to wait that long before I'll get another chance to buy one at an even higher price. I bought some of the fractions in that sale. Here is the one that was the "must have" coin for me this time:

@Al Kowsky, the Hadrian Sestertius is believed to be from dies engraved by the sculptor Antoninianos of Aphrodisias. It's without any doubt one of the most artistic portraits on a roman coin. And it's the most expensive Sestertius ever sold. Here is one of my favorite portraits of Vespasian: Vespasian, AD 69-79. Denarius (3.41 g), Rome, AD 77-78. Obv. CAESAR VESPASIANVS AVG, laureate head of Vespasian right. Rev. IMP - XIX, modius filled with grain ears. Cohen 216; BMC 216; BNC 190; RIC 980.

Thank you very much, @Valentinian! Yet another Mars from the same series, although of completely different style and with a another reverse: Anonymous, Quadrans (15 mm, 2.98 g), Rome, 81-161 AD. Obv. Bust of Mars, helmeted, r., cuirassed and draped, seen from behind Rev. S – C, cornucopiae. RIC 23.

Here's another rare Quadrans I was lucky enough to find. It was well hidden in a multiple lot in an auction of Jean Elsen. I've never seen another one for sale. The obverse shows Mars, but I also see (or believe to see) some features of A. Pius, which would support Joseph van Heesch's theory that (almost) all of the anonymous fractions were minted under A. Pius. Anonymous, Quadrans (18 mm, 3.63 g), Rome, 81-161 AD. Obv. Bust of Mars, helmeted, r., draped. Rev. S – C, aquila flanked by two standards. RIC 22.

That's a great coin, @KenDorney! And one that isn't tooled for once (many of the mine coins are, unfortunately). Looking forward to seeing your "usual suspects", too 🙂

That's a very cool variation I was not even aware of, @Aleph! And I agree, the bold tripod is very distinct (it looks a bit like a table 🙂) and deserves its own (sub-)reference. I found a total of 4 of them online: yours, one sold by Roma last year and two on numismatics.org. I believe they are all from the same pair of dies. Have you looked at yours under a microscope? It has some signs of a cast, I am afraid. The fun thing about fractions is that there are lots and lots of unrecorded variations that you only start to see once you dig into the matter. Here is another one that involves a tripod: While the griffon / tripod type usually has a globe on top of the tripod (see second picture), the following Quadrans shows one without. Anonymous, Quadrans (2.37 g), Rome, 81-161 AD. Obv. Griffon r., resting front left paw on wheel. Rev. S – C, tripod. RIC 27 var. (globe on tripod). Anonymous, Quadrans (17 mm, 3.77 g), Rome, 81-161 AD. Obv. Griffon r., resting front left paw on wheel. Rev. S – C, tripod with globe. RIC 27.

Unfortunately, I don't have Dancoisne and didn't find it online either. But here are the 12 subtypes I have seen so far in the online archives: Galley / D Galley / G Galley / T Galley / V TR / C TR / D (sometimes with a THR [ligate] countermark) TR / G TR / blank VL / M VL / N VL / P VL / blank Are those the same that are in Dancoisne (+2 others)? I see how you can find die links between the galley and the TR type, but what about the VL type? And do you have any idea what the TR, VL and the single letters (C, D, G, M, N, P, T, V) stand for?

I've never seen this bust type for Elagabal. There's definitely a market for rare Elagabal Tetras: https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=2663184 https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=5572026