Last Revision: 02/05/05
Soon after I started my population survey of Mexican Republic Gold Coins I quickly became lost. It was almost impossible for me to keep with and know which catalogs and fixed price lists were included in my original survey. This required me to build another computer file, this time to tell which catalogs and fixed price lists were already included in the survey.
My first attempt was a crude affair, which listed each cataloger, the month and year of the sales and a “yes” if the sale contained any 8 Escudos and “no” if none were present. But I had no overall list of all published catalogs to begin with, only the ones in my personal library were available to me.
After talking to Rick Ponterio about my dilemma he furnished me a list he had created at his on expense. After looking at his list I had an idea, I called several literature and auction catalog dealers about my problem. Several had a few suggestions, but two had books that listed U.S. catalogs, so I ordered them. Remy Bourne suggested I buy a book published by Martin Gengerke in 1990 and Charles Davis recommended several others. After spending several hundred dollars purchasing different volumes, I discovered they were all very helpful, but none were what was needed for Mexican Numismatics!
The Gengerke book was very interesting and is probably the most complete list of U.S. auction sales from the 1800s to 1990 ever produced, I still use it today. From this book and a couple of others I was able create the beginning of the FoxLair Master List of Auction Catalogs, later again through the help of Bourne and Davis I was able to find several publications with fixed price lists to insert into my master list. Today, (02/23/05) this master list contains almost 6,000 individual catalogs and fixed price lists. Of these 5,899 entries I have surveyed 3,218 from 305 sources of auction catalogs and fixed price lists originating from all over the world. It will take several more years of work and visiting several other large libraries to complete my survey, all of the periodicals I need are not available for sale in these times, and some individual copies sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars each, which puts them beyond my meager budget.
Today you may purchase what took years to produce and thousands of dollars so far for only $125, plus shipping on CD, or $78.00, plus shipping costs in printed form.
This report notes the cataloger, sale number when one is used, month and year of the sale and tells the exact number of Republican gold coins in each individual sale surveyed, by each of the ten different denominations. Later in my survey I started noting other interesting or large collections of Mexican coins and even a few extreme rarities of U.S. coins in some foreign catalogs.
I begin sorting and display process with the catalog sales produced in the United States, then Canada, Mexico, Europe, and finally the Pacific Rim. I sort each group alphabetically; country, auction producer and by year and month. The only variance in this sorting routine is in the United States section where my first listings are from the annual ANA conventions which began in September 1907.
This is a large file (currently 1.74 mega bites) that is maintained in Microsoft Excel and because it uses so many columns, it is impossible for me to produce a good sample on this limited website. Therefore, if you would like to see my sample list and what the display looks like email me FoxLairAJ@aol.com and I will email the sample to you. If you are unable to open or read Microsoft Excel documents I will mail the sample to you.
I'm sorry, No complete Sample of the FoxLair Catalog & FPL Master List is available on the website, but I have built an abbreviated one that still requires screen scrolling, which I personally hate!
[Sample] Go to Abbreviated Sample
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