As the auction firms get bigger and bigger, does that translate into less generalist catalogers and

Longacre

As the auction firms continue to grow either organically or through acquisitions, it seems that the auctions that they put on get bigger and bigger and more frequent. Similarly, the staffs at the firms must grow to keep pace with the flood of auction consignments that come in the door. Although we are in an area of specialization, does anyone think that the big auction firms are creating too many specialist catalogers simply because they have the enormous staffs that can be broken into specialties? For example, at Heritage, I highly doubt that the guy who catalogs the hundreds upon hundreds of Lincoln cents ever catalogs the early gold. It just isn't efficient. Then the next sale comes along, and in order to meet the deadline, the Lincoln cent cataloger does the Lincoln cents again, as does the early gold cataloger, and so on, until it reaches a point where the Lincoln cent cataloger does not know a Fat Head from a Booby Head. His life is devoted to Lincoln cents and sort of loses something in terms of general numismatic knowledge.

Is this how things operate at the big firms, and is it good for the numismatic world?

Pistareen

<< <i>too many specialist catalogers >>



I think there are four of us, Longacre. On earth.

In my full-time cataloguing career (2000 to present), I've catalogued Liberty $10s from the Bass collection, medieval French gold from the Eliasberg collection), a piece of a treasure chest that smelled like spice and had a Pillar dollar stuck to it, a 7-figure Seated dollar, patterns that are not as old as I am, the world record setters in the Ike, Franklin, and SBA series, and a dollar bill signed by Joe Louis. Among other things.

Keep in mind that I'm one of those specialist cataloguers: I do colonials, large cents, half cents, and exonumia for the most part. Even within that specialty, there is great diversity.

The short answer is that specialists know a little about everything, and that few specialties are THAT specialized. I don't know anyone who makes their living, or even part of a living, doing only Lincolns, or only Bust dollars, or only large cents, etc.

You want rare, find a real generalist: someone who can do anything in the RedBook competantly and maybe some of everything else too. I'm not one. I can't grade a Buffalo nickel to save my life.

Teletrader1950

just send the coins to Teletrade

IGWT

John - How many cataloguers typically work on the average Stack's/ANR catalogue and how is the work divided? Is there a cooperative effort between the photographers and the cataloguers (it seems that there might be some particular aspect of a coin that a cataloguer would like a photo to capture)? Do you have canned descriptions for certain coins of a certain quality (there are only so many ways to describe a gem '41 Walker)? What is the lead time for catalogue production? Who proofreads your work? How much of the work feels like drudgery and how much presents an exciting challenge?

No, this is not a parody of a Longacre post. I'm genuinely curious.

Longacre

<< <i>John - How many cataloguers typically work on the average Stack's/ANR catalogue and how is the work divided? Is there a cooperative effort between the photographers and the cataloguers (it seems that there might be some particular aspect of a coin that a cataloguer would like a photo to capture)? Do you have canned descriptions for certain coins of a certain quality (there are only so many ways to describe a gem '41 Walker)? What is the lead time for catalogue production? Who proofreads your work? How much of the work feels like drudgery and how much presents an exciting challenge?

No, this is not a parody of a Longacre post. I'm genuinely curious. >>




IGWT-- great questions. Hopefully they will get answered. I am curious as well. If you do a search, I asked some questions about the cataloging process where John K provided some incredible answers in the past.

Pistareen

Y'all are lucky I'm well fed, well rested, and met a deadline today. And that it's too cold and windy to go out tonight.



<< <i>John - How many cataloguers typically work on the average Stack's/ANR catalogue and how is the work divided? >>



This is a tough question to answer since the merger. I can tell you that with ANR catalogues, the bulk of the cataloguing was done by Frank and myself. QDB also helped considerably, and John Pack did all the ABN plates among other things. The work has been generally divided by series: I have done all the colonials, large cents, half cents, exonumia and, until the merger, did essentially all the pre-1836 gold and silver too. Since the merger, my load has been cut with Jim Matthews taking over the early gold and silver, but there are a lot more colonials and exonumia coming from the usual Stack's channels now too. Frank is our generalist: if it's in the Red Book, he knows about it. Saints. Morgans. Seated (including all those little bitty varieties). Small cents. Standing quarters. You get the point. Frank probably did 2/3 or more of the lots in any given ANR sale. Now at Stack's, there will be the ANR crowd in addition to Jim Matthews (early type and other stufff), Bruce Hagen (historical paper, currency), David Alexander (exonumia, world coins, other stuff), Jan Blamberg and John Burnham (principally foreign and ancient), and the estimable Michael Hodder, who wrote the coin parts of the Ford Collection. Vicken Yegparian, Jack McNamara, Ugo Leca, Scott Mitchell, and Tom Panichella all catalogue too. So, ANR sales generally had 3-4 cataloguers while the post-merger sales might have as many as a dozen, or more if ancient and foreign stuff is included too.



<< <i>Is there a cooperative effort between the photographers and the cataloguers (it seems that there might be some particular aspect of a coin that a cataloguer would like a photo to capture)? >>



Sometimes we'll ask for a close-up of a particular characteristic on a variety or somesuch, but we don't tell them how to do their jobs any more than tell us how to do ours. No instructions on "capture the lustre" or "focus on blue toning." Doug makes the picture look like the coin looks.



<< <i>Do you have canned descriptions for certain coins of a certain quality (there are only so many ways to describe a gem '41 Walker)? >>



I wish! No, there is not. We do cut and paste the MCMVII High Relief story though, or the graphics people can recite it from memory. Seriously.



<< <i>What is the lead time for catalogue production? >>



Generally we try to have the catalogue in people's hands about 3 weeks before the sale and schedule backwards from there. Of course, if coin dealers were more organized people all consignments would arrive well in advances of published and suggested deadline. They do not always, so cataloguing is often a crush at the end.



<< <i>Who proofreads your work? >>



Other numismatists and numismatically savvy clerical/support staff. Not everything gets caught, but finding that last missed comma does not necessarily do our consignors and bidders as much good as getting it out the door sooner. I think the quality in that regard is pretty good considering the tight deadlines and state of exhaustion near them.



<< <i>How much of the work feels like drudgery and how much presents an exciting challenge? >>



Well, cataloguing is work. It's my job. Not all of it is fun, but it sure beats digging ditches. A certain amount is drudgery, and some of the things are not as fun as they could be because there is not time to enjoy them. Sometimes a coin that would be a treat is not when you come upon it after 11 hours of work. Honestly, sometimes it seems like a blur. There's the negative stuff. But the plus side is far better and is why I'm still cataloguing and not sitting behind a table at 50 shows a year: I get to learn a great deal, and the quality of coins I see teaches me far more than coins of more typical quality. I get to really discover things -- new specimens of rare varieties, a brand new American Conferation gold issue in the Eliasberg Collection (along with a new date of Bogota 4 escudos), pedigrees for coins that had been lost for generations, die states, historical context that had been previously unexplored, etc. I'm an historian by training, so doing the digging and the research has always been the biggest treat for me. Cataloguing LaRiviere's medals, Eliasberg's foreign, and Norweb's Washingtonia let me really learn a lot about each of those areas.

The best part, just like being a collector, is the thrill of the hunt. What will be in that next anonymous consignment? A 1795 half cent with a half dollar hiding underneath? A new Condition Census NJ rarity? A long-lost Strawberry cent? The delight of a cherrypick is just like when a collector does it at a coin show -- except without the instant profit lust that follows.

I'm lucky in that I get to catalogue what I most enjoy. If I was a Morgan dollar specialist, maybe cataloguing all those stinky old coppers would really stink!

IGWT

I'm grateful for the combination of food, sleep, and foul weather that made your response possible. Thanks for the insight.

Coinosaurus

Pistareen, thanks for the inside scoop.

I would think the hard part is cataloguing the dogs, the stuff that you know is absolute cleaned scrubbed junk, messed with, AT or whatever, and keeping a straight face. The problem is that inherently you have a conflict of interest - to the consigner, to the lofty standards of the buyers, and of course to the auction house itself which wants to maximize the market activity. You could take the same coin and catalog it three different ways depending on who you represented!

And it must be really hard to catalog the same widget for the thousandth time and come up with a fresh way to describe it.

RichieURich

Thanks for all the information about cataloging, Pistareen!

CoinRaritiesOnline

Great info, JK. Reading it gives us all a good feel on what it is like to do cataloging for a major auction house.

What if you just asked to catalog the cool and interesting coins, and leave the rest to Frank. How would that go over?

Longacre

Great info, John.

covers

John K - Thank you for your interesting comments. Most of your comments would hold true for any of the collectible auction fields and they certainly do for stamp and postal history auctions. One problem I've seen with postal history sales is that the collectors now are so very narrowly focused that they know more about their field than the auctioneers. That is a double-edged sword for a describer as the house has to be able to sort out fact from fiction.

Some house tend to use "dart-board" derived adjectives to puff material and the smart consumer soon can sort out which words in a description to ignore. I've heard it said that with graded stamps some houses love it because PSE has done their describing for them. This mostly from the "merchant" dealers rather than the "collector" dealers (the stamp dealers that I have the most respect for are invariably collectors themselves although many wouldn't admit it publicly).

Lastly, the lack of generalists is too true. In my field, the Brits and Europeans have a far better grasp of the broad sweep than their American counterparts.


Richard Frajola
www.rfrajola.com