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Who may contribute coin
images to the VCRC?
 The Virtual
Catalog of
Roman Coins in an innovative experiment in collaboration. It depends on the cooperation and
participation of personal coin collectors, professional coin
dealers, and educators. The primary purpose of
VCRC is
educational in a broad sense: to educate the wider Web
community about ancient Roman coinage and history. In order
to offer high quality information and images of coins
VCRC depends
on materials digitized and described by collectors and
dealers. If you have images and descriptions of coins that
would be of use to VCRC
we invite you to share your
materials and participate in our project.
What kind of images can
we use?
We are looking for
high quality GIF or JPG images that include both obverse and reverse in
the same file (and we prefer obverse on the left, reverse on
the right). We have seen some excellent images of obverses
and reverses scanned separately, but we cannot use them
because of the time involved in keeping track of two images
per coin and/or creating a new, single image. We have also
seen Web pages with nice images and little or no text
describing the coins. Due to our own limited reference
resources (one of the reasons for creating the
VCRC in the
first place!) we cannot look up legends, coin types, and
devices.
How much description do
we need?
The most important
part of the desciption we need is an accurate
transciption of the legends/inscriptions. We cannot check these well on
our own (although we do correct obvious errors). We would also appreciate having a general
description of the obverse and reverse, especially for rare coin types. A
reference number (Crawford for Republican coins, RIC for Imperial) will enable us to enter the images into the database more quickly, but
is not absolutely required. Likewise, grade is not
necessary. We may not include grades in future versions of
VCRC because they are quite subjective. But for now we will
use them, when available. The following is a good example of
a good image and description:
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GORDIAN III. Antoninianus.
Obverse: IMP. CAES. M. ANT. GORDIANVS AVG.
His radiated and draped bust right.
Reverse: VIRTUS AVG. Mars standing facing
left holding spear and olive branch. Shield at his
feet.
Reference: RIC 36; Sear 2466. Grade: aU/ChEF.
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Contributor: Teresa Darling.
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We will add other information about the coin, where appropriate.
Note: images are reduced to a 200 pixel width (and usually 100 pixel height) on the
catalog pages. Users can click on a link and see the images in
their full size.
Is there a limit to how
big the image file can be?
Not really, but we
do like to keep the image files small so they will load
faster. Many of our best images are in the 35-60K
range.
What is the best way to
get images and descriptions to you?
The best way is to
put your materials on a server and let us download them. The
optimum configuration is one description and coin per
page--similar to the format for selling single coins through
on-line auctions. Another configuration that we can handle
is a single page of descriptions with item numbers and then
links (or just addresses) to the coin images with the same
numbers. If you prefer to email individual coin images and
descriptions, please let us know in advance that they are
coming in.
Is there a limit to how
many images I can contribute?
No! At some point
we will run out of server space, but until that happens, we
can accept all the good images that you are willing to let
us use. If you have a large collection of coins and are
digitizing the images, we invite you to let us include your
collection on VCRC.
For more
information about the VCRC, please
contact the Project Director via e-mail (rcape@austincollege.edu) or at the following address:
Robert W. Cape, Jr.
Associate Professor of Classics
Classical and Modern Languages, #61653
Austin College
900 N. Grand Avenue
Sherman, TX 75090-4400
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