July 1st, 2010 – This July marks one year since the launch of CoinArchives Pro, the Web’s most comprehensive and powerful research platform for ancient and world coins.
CoinArchives Pro is a searchable, illustrated database of past coin auctions extending back as far as 1999. With more than 1.1 million sales records from over 40 participating auction firms, the site is by far the largest resource of its kind. Its major benefit is that it aggregates auction records from many sources, giving its subscribers access to high quality numismatic data and market information in a single location.
The subscription-based CoinArchives Pro service grew from the success of CoinArchives.com, a free research tool available since 2002. Building on its well established predecessor, CoinArchives Pro focuses on commercial users by including features that are more relevant to their needs. It has accomplished this goal by implementing enhanced search, display, and analysis options. These improvements, along with a number of other upgrades, make CoinArchives Pro an advanced research platform that is essential for dealers of ancient and world coins.
With quick access to price records and pedigree information, CoinArchives Pro subscribers can make more informed business decisions. In addition, the service helps increase the efficiency of coin attribution, which is a major advantage to dealers who want to make better use of their limited time and cataloging resources.
Speaking about the move to a subscription-based business model, CoinArchives founder A. J. Gatlin explains, “I launched CoinArchives Pro last year for a couple of reasons. First, many of the commercial users of the free CoinArchives.com were requesting an enhanced version of the site that focused more on their needs and interests. Second, the data licensing agreements I had with some of the participating auction firms had to be re-negotiated, and only a subscription-based service would fit under the new terms of our agreement.”
After the launch of the Pro site, the free CoinArchives site was restructured – but it did not disappear. “In keeping with the seven-year tradition of the site, CoinArchives.com remains freely available to users who want to search the most recent six months of auction results,” Gatlin said.
Since its launch in the summer of 2009, the CoinArchives Pro service has been very popular among commercial users. But CoinArchives has always been a valuable resource for academic and educational use as well. According to Gatlin, “I have always been proud to support numismatic research and education with my work on CoinArchives. I wanted to give academic users access to the new platform at a discounted price, so I created CoinArchives Pro Academic Edition.”
Introduced in the fall of 2009, Academic Edition subscriptions are available to qualified academic users at a significant discount. Qualified users include students, educators, and faculty affiliated with educational institutions such as universities, museums, and libraries.
Looking to the future, CoinArchives continues to add new auction data and firms to expand the site’s coverage of ancient and world coin sales records. The site may also look at expanding the types of customers it serves. While CoinArchives Pro now focuses on academic and commercial customers, Gatlin recognizes the possibility of providing an intermediate level of access for collectors. “I understand that there is a demand for this research tool by collectors who may be better served by a different subscription model than the one we now offer. I hope to be able to develop a new type of subscription that will give these users access in the future.”
You can find more information about CoinArchives Pro, including examples of features and pricing, at http://pro.coinarchives.com. Also, please watch CoinArchives.com for upcoming announcements of new subscription types, when available.