Len Augsburger

IN CHARGE OF DIGITIZING EVERYTHING NUMISMATIC

- 

Researcher and archivist Leonard Augsburger serves as project coordinator for the Newman Numismatic Portal (NNP). He is widely published and recognized as an award-winning expert in American numismatics who serves as an elected o cer in multiple coin-related organizations. He presides over 70,000 documents that take up 40 terabytes and growing of storage space.

COINage recently asked Augsburger about his current projects and his views on numismatics today and how he would like to see the industry evolve in the future.

What’s the primary goal of the Newman Numismatic Portal and how was it funded?
We want to make available online as much information as we can. We’re focused on classic documents, old auction catalogs and specialty books. NNP was funded by a $2 million grant from the Eric P. Newman Numismatic Education Society to Washington University in St. Louis. The Society continues to support the NNP. The foundation received about $70 million from selling their coins through Heritage Auctions and wanted to give back to the hobby and honor the legacy of Eric P. Newman. The proceeds from the sales of the coins all go to charity.

Is this whole project cloud-based?
The material is stored by Internet Archive, which is cloud-based. Local copies are just stored as a backup. However, we recently opened an exhibit at Washington University that spanned seven cases showcasing a couple-hundred coins. I work full-time and Kim Dumas administers scanning equipment and manages books coming in and out as well as students. We have a number of scanning machines at the universities and hire students to assist.

Will collectors and investors be able to use the portal for assistance in valuation, provenance and historical background of a coin?