Jim, Welcome to the ANS and the AmnNumSoc-L!

I've been an ANS member for two years, but I've never posted to this
list before. I live in New York and am a collector of Greek bronze and
fractions. I'm also working on a web version of Barclay Head's famous
books on Greek coins.

Last month I attended the ANS annual meeting for the first time. The
meeting was held in the Society's stunning new downtown building. I had
no idea what to expect from the meeting, so perhaps a description is
worthwhile for other list members who can't make it to NYC.

An ANS meeting is not like the local coin club meetings I attended as a
youth! About 40 numismatists were in attendence. The men wore
jackets. Nearly all of the attendees were Society employees or ANS
fellows (the voting members). There were short presentations on ANS
activities by the president, security chief, and director. There were
elections but voting was brief -- everyone voted to confirm the board's
recommendations. Most interesting to me were short slide shows of coin
acquisitions by each of the curators.

(Gyula, Sebastian Heath was at the meeting and spoke with me about the
great times in Madrid. I suspect he and all the ANS employees are busy
with the move.)

I recently discovered that most of the 'out-of-print' ANS publications
can be purchased in facsimile form from the microfilm publisher 'Books
On Demand.' I've been told (by a BOD customer) that the quality is
similar to a xerox copy. The prices start at $30, with the longer
publications costing much more. I haven't ordered anything yet myself,
but the arrangement seems like a great boon to scholars having
difficulty locating scarce originals. I counted 181 out-of-print ANS
titles on BOD's web page, which is
http://wwwlib.umi.com/bod/search/basic . (The in-print books are of
course still available from the David Brown Book Company,
http://www.amnumsoc.org/store/davidbrown.html ).

-Ed