Comments on proposed numismatic website wanted.

RWB

Member’s comments and suggestions would be appreciated on a website under consideration.

The site would contain PDF copies of published and unpublished research articles I’ve written, including footnotes. Also PDF copies of certain U.S. Mint documents such as Assay Commission, Pittman silver dollar production and other documents of possible interest to collectors.

Everything would be readable on-line at no cost. Downloading an article for personal or coin club use might cost a few dollars for read-only PDFs. There would also be links to numismatic sites that present accurate, quality information on specialties.

All article PDFs would be searchable via Acrobat Reader. However, many old documents are handwritten and modern OCR fails miserably, so they would not be searchable unless a huge amount of work were done to transcribe them. (This is similar to what the Chicago Coin Club shows on their web site of Annual Mint Reports.)

Not sure about advertising, but prefer not to have it.

Technically, a broadband connection would be required – some article files (such as Assay Commission) easily top 75 meg. because of the illustrations.

Thanks!
RWB

19Lyds

I think this sounds like a great idea Roger!

I expect that its popularity might require some type of advertising to cut your costs though and I would not be at all opposed to that!

stinkinlincoln

Great idea, and thank you for thinking of collectors by offering it for free.


You could get $9 a month per member though...

LanLord

Considering the source, I'd be very interested in looking through it on a regular basis.

CoinMiner1

Hi,

What OCR tech are you using?

Digi pens have come a long way in the last few years.

blue594

I would love to be able to read your articles and check out the mint data. Always interesting to me.

John

lathmach

Great idea.

Ray

speety

I would love to have this resource and would have no problem paying for some of the PDFs.

ElKevvo

I think it is a great idea...If I were setting it up I would be concerned about the size of the available files as multiple downloads could chew up the allotted bandwidth pretty quickly depending on what sort of hosting plan the site had. Just a budget type thought.

One of the thing I would be interested in are the various documents as they are not readily available to the average collector like me...

Thanks for asking!

K

Walmann

I hope your website becomes more than a consideration and comes to fruit. More than a few would be very eager to read not only the published but perhaps more so the unpublished articles you have penned.

If the site does become a reality I hope that you get the website's address out to as many venues as possible. All too often valuable material is missed by many just due to the tremendous number of sites out there.

Depending on the target group of your articles some venues will represent a better route of exspoure than others.

Unknown

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Julian

Fantastic idea, Roger. I hope that you are able to put it together for all numismatists to learn and enjoy!!

eggbone

More resources...better informed.

Thanks!!

MidLifeCrisis

Great idea! I hope you can make it work.

YaHa

Are you going to have a adult only section? JK, great idea and hope things work out for ya..

FredF

I think it's a great idea.

I also don't personally find the google text-based adsense ads too detracting from a site, if you're looking to help defray some of the cost of running it. Those are pretty easy to set up.

-Fred

rgCoinGuy

Sounds like a great idea to me. I am sure if you post your progress and any issues you are having here, a lot of people will be more than willing to help with any technical issues.

EagleEye

A wonderful idea.

I was talking to RyAnne Scott, the Library Manager at the ANA, about a similar project. However, I think posting your research is much more interesting.

Perhaps there could be a tie-in. She expressed interest in getting one of these:



Book scanner

It makes short work of digitizing Mint Reports, auction catalogs and issues of The Numismatist.

Longacre

I am not a copyright lawyer, so I am curious if any of the US government information that you are intending to post is protected property. Other than that issue, I think the information that you will post will be valuable to the numismatic community.

Send me a PM if you want to set up a holding company in Barbados.

tahoe98

........excellent idea, RWB! i certainly look forward to the project completion!

baddogss

<< <i>Hi,

What OCR tech are you using?

Digi pens have come a long way in the last few years. >>



I believe he's talking about scanned-in hand written documents and the trouble OCR has recognizing cursive hand writing? Thus, making searching the resulting electronic document very difficult.

kajdg657

You can screen print anything that comes up on your screen. You will need to charge otherwise the downloading for a fee would be pointless with the use of multiple screen shots. Other than that it sounds like an amazing Idea. If the OCR is giving you troubles, try and find a way of allowing members, while searching, to fill in OCR's miskeys.

AUandAG

I haven't read all the above responses but could you hook up with the ANA, PCGS, NGC, etc that
could broadband it for you? Would be nice to have a sponsor. I'd pay for your research. I think
that most would do so. Might be a huge task to undertake yourself. Hope you do though!

bob

RWB

Thanks all for your suggestions and ideas! Much appreciated.

Steve

Roger,
Two things:

1. Glad to see you back posting to these boards.
2. I think your ideas are great and would be great for the hobby. I hope you can work it out.

Steve