Actual extract from the 'Introduction from the Cataloguer' in a numismatic sales catalogue I'm using at the moment ('Coins of the Peloponnese: the BCD Collection'):

'BCD's concern for scholarly integrity has led him to insist on my providing provenances for every coin that has previously appeared in an illustrated catalogue or price list of any kind, no matter how obscure, since he believes such references will prove important for future scholars doing die studies. I have, nevertheless, managed to exclude some truly useless lists (BCD: But this triobol comes from the only illustrated list of Franz-Otto Knödel of Feinschmankerl bei Haxen in Bavaria! Scholars will find this important! ASW: No they won't! You're the only person on Earth who has conceivably kept a copy of such a miserable photocopied list with upside-down, not-to-scale, out-of-focus, misidentified coins! I'm not putting it in my catalogue! BCD: Grrrrrr.)'

Sometimes, I do love my big dumb subject.

ETA: p.156: 'Another hemidrachm is known with the head facing right; it is, unfortunately, too poorly preseved to be illustrated and is therefore not included in the catalogue. A note from BCD: As you see, ASW draws the line somewhere. But how can he be so sure that the coin is too poorly preserved to be illustrated? Mind you, with the overhead fluorescent lamps in his office being his only light source, I am surprised he can actually see a coin, let alone judge how photogenic it can be.'

This is the best auction catalogue *ever*.

ETA 2: p.306: 'A note from BCD: This is the best of my early Hermione hemidrachms but ASW had to include many other similar coins in order to contradict himself when he calls them very rare. Serious scholarship is like that...you have to keep the reader confused, otherwise one day he may learn enough to challenge you on your own grounds.'

ETA 3: p.345: 'According to the continuator of Athenaeus (Deipn. Pseud. X, passim) the roof tiles on the buildings of the acropolis at Lousoi were very glossy and glinted like gems in the rays of the setting sun; this gave rise to the proverbial saying, 'Lousoi in the sky with diamonds.''