Where can I buy this catalog? I know valeriyavaleriya71 is selling it for $250 on Ebay, is there any other place it can be bought online?

Just contact em.

vvbitkin(at)hotmail.com

that will be easy.

I've just sent to your e-mail info from Mr Bitkin. At our store this catalog cost $120.

Did you check at Alex Basok's website? http://www.rustypennies.com

Also, Dmitry Markov usually has some books for sale: http://www.russian-coins.net. Don't know about Bitkin, though.

Bob Reis has a web site where I once bought RW Julian's reference: http://www.anythinganywhere.com/

Maybe you could also drop a note to Jim Elmen -- he sells back catalogs of his auctions, and I wouldn't be surprised if he could tell you where one can purchase other books such as Bitkin?

No one can beat the offer from antikvarius for $120.
In addition, no one in US sells these books accept for valeriyavaleriya (and possibly Markov), but you already know their price.

Thank you! I'm going with antikvarius's offer.

I have to say that this offer is very good and I have never regretted that I used this service. The books arrived fast. Thanks again !

You are welcome! We were glad to help you.

Hi !

Yesterday i have sent USD 150 via Western Union to the shop of antikvarius in the ukrain.
I hope to get the bitkin catalog in the next couple of days .
Normally i don´t want to use Western Union, because of the high fees and i don´t like to send money to unknown people .
But it seems to be the only possibility to get this catalog for a reasonable price.

Maybe we can make also a further business in the future, because i am a dealer in coins and banknotes and especially with accessories and catalogs of many companies and we are using our webshop to sell in all countries of the EU and USA / Canada mainly.

If it works, it could be possible to sell the Bitkin catalog in our webshop too - that would be a very interesting catalog for many, many russian coin collectors in the european and US market !

Regards from Vienna

Michael

Antikvarius provides excellent service. Prices are reasonable and the books arrived quickly. I would not hesitate to buy from him again.

"Contact-System" is less expensive than Western Union as a way to pay.

Hello guys!
Michael, I've send you a reply to your e-mail.
Too bad we don't have a good bank sistem in Ukraine that could allow things like PayPal over here. Also Visa isn't working all the time as good as it should be so we just have to accept payments through available sistems

I recieved my copy of Bitkin today from Antikvarius. Im quite happy.

I sent payment via Western union online, which required a bit of set up for them to confirm my bank info (had to call them and answer some questions, i assume for security reasons) but the money wire was confirmed almost instantly after that.

Thank you Alex!

Thank you all for nice words

Expect an order from me also after I get my tax rebate (oh yeah, I'm supposed to use it to buy something in the US!).

Thanks Antikvarius

(pretty much in that order)

and definitely not legal. Would you also buy a coin if you knew it was stolen from another collector?

(Edited out)

Stop!

This is advocating downloading somebody's copyrighted work. Stealing it. I've seen Bitkin on one of these sites too. It's illegal. It's unethical.

Sorry but you are advocating it. Saying you are not doesn't mean you are not. You said "Try torrent site". And please spare the "I'm just sharing my knowledge". It's Bad bad bad.

For $120, you could have gotten the book. A collection of scans would be painful to use compared to having the physical book.

These books were printed in small quantities and there is a real market for scarce numismatic literature (if you don't believe me, check out a Kolbe auction sometime).

At $120, the book is a wonderful deal and in future years will probably bring much more when sold. But your CDs won't.

In my opinion, you got a bad deal.

Orest - a fair warning: I don't really care what you are buying, practicing or such as I don't have the power to stop you.

However, sharing information about copyright materials in particular an entire source is highly prohibited and if you keep insisting on bringing this topic up, you are not welcomed to post in this forum any longer. Referencing, scanning a section is fine but NOT an entire book. If you have a large amount of money to buy coins as suggested on other thread, I don't see why you can't afford to buy books.

The thing is, authors have to come up with money somehow to fund their research. I don't care how you claim that they are greedy or what so ever - that's in the debates forum if you wish to argue there.

At $120, the book is an excellent deal. Once the remaining volumes are sold off, I expect its market value will climb well above that level.

Even if you have it on CD, buying the physical book itself is a no-brainer.

OK, now I sharing legal information. Bitkin cataloque price in Kiiev bookstore is something about 50.-USD

Really?

Then why did you spend $65 for pirated CDs?

I have recently received my copy of Mr. Bitkin's catalogue from Antikvarius as well. What a wonderful work it is! It is amazing how much research, how much knowledge, how much time and effort have gone into creating this superb reference every serious collector would treasure. It is infuriating to think that someone would have the arrogance to steal it!!! And it is discouraging to think that one of us would consider using the pirated copy .

Agreed. Well said Maya.

This CD-s have very nice outlook. I am not 100% sure that this is pirate.

But earlier you said:


What has changed to make you think that copying and selling someone else's book might be legal?

And how on earth could a bunch of images of each page be "handy" to find the individual listing you want? It sounds awkward, even painful to me.

And why on earth would you pay more for some pirated CDs than what you claim you can buy the book for in Kiev ($50)?

That seems (at least, to me) like an especially foolish and frankly, unbelievable purchase decision.

Tallinn: It's very easy. If it's legal (and it was you who suggested it might not be) you should be comfortable telling the name of the dealer who is selling these. I'm not asking for it. I don't want it. But if you are not prepared to do that, you have your answer.

Steve

Tallin, I can oficially say from Mr. Bitkin that there is no such thing as legal CD version of his catalog. So as no such thing as $50 for real book in Kiev (just for your information: dealers can get a catalog from Mr. Bitkin for $100 so it is impossible to sell it for $50). I've seen some pirate xerox copies of this catalog for $50 in Kiev and people that try to sell it say it is a real ones, but it is a lie. If you would know what a job it is to make such book you would never buy those "CD-s with very nice outlook".

Thanks a lot to all of you for support in this topic It is very nice to see that people are against the piracy. In our country you hardly can see it because it is a usual thing for many to steal someone's work and use it. We try to take care of people that sell CD-s with this catalog over here but too bad we can't do anything with copies of books of other authors. It is discouraging to see some bozo selling it for $2 a piece (exact cost of pirate CD copy over here) when people spend 3-4 years to work on catalog.

Hi !

Last saturday i got my catalog from atikvarius store and the two volumes are really great !
Forget the "World coins catalog" - even the pictures from the coins are rather better in the Bitkin catalog.
The two volumes of the Bitkin Catalog 2003 are written in russian and english language, so it helps to use the catalog for people, who don´t know the cyrillic letters and the russian language as well.
It took about 18 days for delivering, but the books have passed the customs of course.
By the way the books are in an execellent shape, so the books have been manufactured in highest quality.

The only thing, what is not really defined:

Nobody says in the whole catalog, in which curreny the catalog has been written at the prices for the different coins - i guess the prices are US $ - are they ?

Kind regards from Vienna

Michael

I also purchased from Antikvarius. The books arrived FAST and the service was courteous and professional.

I would not hesitate to buy from him again.



I believe they are in USD. Prices are from 2003 & earlier, so are somewhat dated, but still valuable as a guide to relative rarity and values today.

This is a superb work that is an extremely valuable contribution to Russian numismatic literature. The fact that it is bilingual (Russian and English) makes it especially valuable to those of us who are not native Russian speakers. I cannot say enough good things about this book and I am thrilled to have added it to my library.

Glad you've got it finally, I was wondering about that. Usually it takes 7-10 days, but this time there was some delay probably with custom or postal service.
Prices in the catalog are in dollars, everybody have been using this currency worldwide 5 years ago, and that's why there is no mention about this subject. Too bad those prices are qiute old but still can be used in the sense of correlation.

Thank you for the answer, i certainly thought that the prices are in US$ but i was not sure about it.
Well i will try to introduce the catalog at my webshop in the next couple of days, maybe it will be an interesting product for coin collectors in the european community.

You said, the prices are rather old (from 2003) - do you think, the prices generally are higher now, lower or at the same value ?

Kind regards,

Michael

Prices have been rising on a MONTHLY basis - no reason why they would be the same back in 2003.

This catalog's valuations (or any other recent Russian catalog) were too low at the time the catalog was published. By now they are completely outdated, even if you assume the valuations are in Euro or even British Pounds.

Aha !

So i resume, that i need some coin dealers in russian coins and of course auction houses to compare their prices with the prices in the Bitkin catalog to get the actual prices. Anyway - the Bitkin is a great and very useful catalog and it is a good base to see, which coins are really rare and which coins not.

Thank you for your help !

Kind regards,

Michael

Agreed.

Note that the rapid rise in prices makes any catalog obsolete before it is even printed. In many cases, especially for rarer coins which do not change hands on a daily basis, values often can only be estimated by judging what other similarly rare coins have brought in recent sales. Value is determined when the coin is actually sold and in the case of rare coins at auction, market demand might cause that value to substantially exceed well-informed estimates.

The value of the Bitkin catalog does not lie in having up-to-the-minute pricing information, because no catalog can deliver that.

For example, a common 1818-ПС СПБ rouble, discussed HERE, is listed in Bitkin in UNC at $350, but the coin cited ("MS-63") just sold on ebay for slightly over $3000.

This huge difference in prices says nothing about the value of the Bitkin catalog, but says a lot about how rapidly prices in the Russian coin market are changing.

Well said, Grivna

Bitkin will remain a valuable work for a long time.

Coin values from Petrov, Ilyin, etc are in use to this day by the major auction houses to denote relative rarity.

Got my catalog today, very nice. It's 100 times better than other Russian coins catalogs I have and something I was looking for a while.
Thank you!

Glad to hear it. Thanks for good words!

I just ordered the Bitkin catalog from your store myself. I've had a ripped-off CD copy now for a couple of years ... very ashamed of myself! Looking forward to receiving the real thing!

You won't regret the purchase. It's a wonderful book and a bargain at the asking price.

please let me know how to get one. Also, what would be your reccomendation on book for Soviet coins. Федорин? Fedorin?

Spasibo!

Money transfer by Western Union or Contact System (cheaper) is probably best. Suggest you send a private message or email to Antikvarius for instructions.