An Important OCRE Update
The American Numismatic Society (ANS) has recently launched an update to its Online Coins of the Roman Empire (OCRE) digital corpus. This update, months in the making, incorporates the newly published volume of Spink’s authoritative series, Roman Imperial Coinage (RIC) into OCRE. Published in 2019, this new volume updates the typology of Hadrian’s coinage. It builds on the original 1929 volume but expands to include new finds, correct old errors, and provide more detailed dating.
OCRE provides easily accessible data and offers researchers a valuable analytical tool. The platform allows users to fine-tune searches, deepening user customization and allowing for more nuanced inquiry. The abundant samples of Roman coin types– drawing from over 40 significant numismatic collections worldwide, a figure that keeps growing– create an unparalleled opportunity for die studies at the highest resolution.
As part of this update, the ANS expanded the OCRE database to include Spink’s new volume. In addition to digitizing the information in the volume, the OCRE update creates “supertypes”, a valuable tool for collectors. The use of a “supertype” allows related coins to be grouped where no 1:1 relationship exists between the old and the new volumes. We hope this addition will be an asset to collectors looking to update their own collection records to the new volume. The recently completed update supports the ANS’ goal to offer the most contemporary resources available for numismatic study.
To realize this important update, the ANS has hired a temporary assistant to incorporate the volume into OCRE and renumber their Hadrian collection. If you are an OCRE user, patron of numismatics, collector of Roman coins, or passionate about digital accessibility, please consider donating to our GoFundMe page in support of this initiative.
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The American Numismatic Society (ANS), organized in 1858 and incorporated in 1865 in New York State, operates as a research museum under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and is recognized as a publicly supported organization under section 170(b)(1)(A)(vi) as confirmed on November 1, 1970.
