Is it just me, or is the Stacks Bowers archive difficult to search?

Lakesammman · January 22, 2013 2:07PM

Spent 30 minutes today trying to find a specific lot in their archives w/o success. It's referenced in their current auction.

Why is it such a morass?

coinsarefun · January 22, 2013 2:15PM

In my experience they have got to be one of the most difficult to search.

I never had an easy search time and is it me or did they stop showing the images of past coin auctions a year or so back?

RYK · January 22, 2013 2:18PM

Well, you are welcome to take over as lead archivist. Let me show you your office...

coinsarefun · January 22, 2013 2:28PM

OMG!!!! It's times like this when I see this kind of picture I am sincerely grateful to the Bill Gates
of the world for paperless orginazation

That pic gives me the willies !!!!!

<< <i>Well, you are welcome to take over as lead archivist. Let me show you your office...

>>

stealer · January 22, 2013 2:50PM

Doesn't Heritage handle more bulk, considering its bi-weekly auctions, as compared to Stacks-Bowers? Heritage has a very, very sleek and nice auction archival system.

SmEagle1795 · January 22, 2013 2:51PM

"difficult" would be one of the biggest understatements I've felt regarding Stack's searching abilities.

Broadstruck · January 22, 2013 2:55PM

It's beyond finding hay in a needle stack... Their rare coin sales page is a real joke too!

oreville · January 22, 2013 8:38PM

Why do you think I am going to New York City to view the coins?

My drive time plus viewing the cons in person is less than trying to search the stuff on their website?

Plus I get the advantage of viewing in oerson.

I did get a head start by looking at some of the coins at the FUN show.

Lakesammman · January 22, 2013 10:13PM

Plus I get the advantage of viewing in oerson

Oreville - I'm not sure that's allowed!

Justacommeman · January 22, 2013 10:37PM

The Dewey Decimal System and microfiche would be more efficient

MJ

mrearlygold · January 22, 2013 11:12PM

Nobody is going to compete on the internet with Heritage. They have a platform that took many years to develop.

TwoSides2aCoin · January 22, 2013 11:45PM

Buy the coin... & leave the research to someone else.

You could have practiced putting in the office for 30 minutes.

DeliaBug · January 23, 2013 12:21AM

<< <i>Spent 30 minutes today trying to find a specific lot in their archives w/o success. It's referenced in their current auction.

Why is it such a morass?

>>

The new search that they inherited from B&M is junk. The older Stack's site still is up and search works, but the pictures are now gone. Stacks Legacy site

pmac · January 23, 2013 12:40AM

I've found that since they joined ranks with "Bowers" the archive has gone missing. I was able to research their archives easily before the merger. A call to their customer service department could lead you in the right direction.

mozin · January 23, 2013 4:49AM

I agree the StacksBowers search feature is lacking big time.

sniocsu · January 23, 2013 4:54AM

From experience; the search does not return ALL of the results either. I have searched for a type of coin and then can pull up in their auction archives several of the given type that the search missed.

leothelyon · January 23, 2013 5:27AM

<< <i>Nobody is going to compete on the internet with Heritage. They have a platform that took many years to develop. >>

But they have taken away many of the enlargement features in past auctions. I click to see the bigger pictures and it doesn't happen. That makes their archives useless if you want to compare quality coins to the ones you might buy in the future.

DrPete · January 23, 2013 6:09AM

Let's put it this way: The current Stack Bowers web computer capability is about where we are in most of Medicine with most of our governement mandated electronic medical records. These mandates are wasting huge amounts of money and are killing our productivity. In other words, most of the available computer systems being sold for a lot of money to hospitals are barely functional and cost huge amounts, despite their flaws. We are continuing to beta test the junk out there and will for years to come by the looks of things. The picture of the lady at the desk above is a great metaphor for our systems.

Heritage has done it right and is how they have their system would be a dream to the medical community. Think of computers that you could use to supplement and optimize your medical activities and how much more efficient and productive we would be. Something like iTunes with simple interface and word finding etc literally shames medical computers out there.

So, give them time. Heritage has a huge head-start and has spent zillions on getting where they are. Me, I will continue to struggle with the suboptimal systems we must use.