Top Ten reasons to
Publish your Coins on the Web
The most important reason to publish any educational coin collection,
is to share the knowledge gained before it is lost. Many major
collections painstakingly put together, may get published as books,
but most unfortunately, as auction catalogs just before it breaks-up.
I list below the main advantages in publishing a numismatic collection
on the World Wide Web.
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(10) It is practically Free to publish pages you create
on the World Wide Web while improving your computer literacy.
There are many Free or low-cost options for hosting a small website.
Even creating your unique domain name.
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(9) You can publish Now before completing your project, and
let it grow slowly by improving and editing the web pages as time permits.
Please read W3C Style
recomendations.
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(8) While they remain Safe, locked in a Bank vault at home, you
can look at and show your coins on the web at almost any place in the
world or even carry your collection in a laptop computer.
There is no export restrictions on images :-)
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(7) You can use Images of coins from Museums and the worlds
leading collections as fillers in a website for rare coins you may
never find or afford to buy, with their copyright permission
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(6) You Protect your coins, not ever needing to handle or take
them out of their cases again. High resolution scans are almost as
good as looking at a coin under magnification.
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(5) To Highlight features, you can enhance the color of
scanned images. You don't need to destroy the value of coins by
cleaning dark coin surfaces.
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(4) You can Publicize omissions and errors in major catalogs
without the almost impossible task of catching the attention of the
editors to rectify the errors. Then when you do catch their attention,
you can be the contributor to correct the catalog listings.
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(3) You Share the information you carefully compile on your
website with an interested global audience extending far beyond your
local coin club or annual coin show and promote your cultural heritage.
Your website can also become your open notebook to record and share
your thoughts and ideas.
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(2) You get E-mail Contact from strangers from
across the world with your interests, sometimes with useful
comments or complements on your website and often to give help or
seek advise.
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(1) You increase global awareness of your narrow specialty, and soon
appear to become a Guru while there are probably many experts
who know a lot more but who are less known in CyberSpace :-)
The traditional way to show others the new additions to your collection
is at local coin clubs and after you have completed a set at an exhibition
at a local or national Coin Show. Based on the quality of the exhibit one
may be rewarded by say by a plaque to congratulate your effort.
Web-sites although can be used to setup a similar exhibit has it's own
sometimes unexpected encouragement.
In 2003 May I walked into a small Antiques show near the Galle, Light-House.
I was glad that the owner was proud that he sold no fake copies of coins
which are touted on the beach. I did not see any. He showed me the coins
he had for sale and I picked out a few of interest to me. He then showed
me a pile of medieval Lankan copper massa coins and said that he was trying
to learn to identify them using a document that a German Tourist had
given him. Curious as to what it was, I asked to see it and was shown
a print out of some of my web pages. I knew that my web-site had reached
out beyond the Internet.
In 1998, just before the LakdivaCoins web-site was started the
Superintendent of currency of CBSL said he was worried that most of
the commemorative coins remained unsold and that the Central bank was
reluctant to invest in an new commemorative issues. I informed him
that they did very poor marketing of what they had for sale and gave
no easy way for collectors abroad to purchase any of the coins. The
Coins and Currency web-page at the central bank web-site remain not
updated for many years. Now the demand for commemorative coins have
required the Central Bank to restrict sales and even stop sales of
some of the coin issues in limited supply to ensure a fair
distribution to genuine collectors rather than dealers.
In 2003 May I was at the Central Bank commemorative coin sales desk to
buy a few copies of recent issues. While I was there a messenger
walked in with a request from a dealer to buy some coins. Attached to
the request was a printout of the coin from my web-page. The large
request was however denied since the Central Bank now sold only a
maximum of 2 coins of that issue to any customer because of the small
remaining stock. I knew that my web-site now plays a significant role
in giving publicity to the Sri Lanka commemorative coins.
Read also top-ten hints for creating a good numismatic
website.
Please E-mail me any comments.
This web page is posted on LakdivaCoins a web site for
numismatic information on Coins and Tokens that circulated in Lanka.