I have finished synthesizing the information I have received from the old Smythe and NASCA catalogues made available to me. The result can be seen in the
All_Lots.xls file. The most recent edition has the following changes from previous versions:
1) Smaller file size due to removal of the broken hyperlinks to Smythe images
2) Additional column denoting Auction House (to allow sorting by auction house)
3) Sale date column now stored in computer sortable format (yyymmdd)
4) A notation was added to the Chain of Custody column when an item was noted as a plate note for a reference book.
The spreadsheet now contains 6661 rows of auction listings. In some cases single auction lots were broken into multiple rows (when the auction lot contained items from multiple banks).
The Sale Dates tab contains information about the auction catalgues that were processed (in black) as well as those that were referenced (in red).
Processing that is under way includes the following:
1) Cross-checking the chain of custody references. When a lot description references a prior auction that has been processed into the spreadsheet I verify that the lot descriptions match. When they do, I color code the chain of custody cells pale green and include a forward reference in the older lot's Chain of Custody cell so that the entries cross reference each other and can be seen as verified.
2) Inserting and verifying Haxby reference numbers for lots that previously had none. This generally involves putting the bank number in first, and verifying the note type number later. Cells are marked bright yellow if they are incomplete or need verification of some sort. Cells are marked red if verification is impossible for some reason (e.g. no information provided in catalgue that enables verification).
3) Including information from recent Stack's auctions.
4) Processing the information about the catalogues to produce a "shopping list" of catalogues I would like to scan, and seeking out those catalogues. I will post a list soon, but basically any catalogue shown in red on the Sale Dates tab is on my shopping list.
- Greg