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SCIPIO

Art and rare book sales/auction catalogs

Why select this database?

 Note: You will need to complete the FirstSearch/WorldCat Discovery—WorldCat Discovery Premium Quote Request form to request a quote in order to add SCIPIO as a FirstSearch database.

  • Only online list of auction catalog records in existence.
  • Provides information to auction sales catalogs from all major North American and European auction houses as well as many private sales.
  • Valuable source of information on art objects, rare books, history of collecting and contemporary and historical market trends.
  • Catalogs for sales from the late sixteenth century to scheduled auctions not yet held.
  • Records include the dates and places of sales, the auction houses, sellers, institutional holdings, and titles of works.

Subjects included

  • art objects
  • collection sets
  • estates
  • furniture
  • jewelry
  • paintings
  • rare books
  • rugs
  • sketching
  • sculpture
  • textiles

Database details

Database name SCIPIO
Short database name SCIPIO
Available on FirstSearch, WorldCat Discovery, and WorldCat.org
Sources SCIPIO is a joint project of 25 different fine arts organizations, combining their art catalog collections
Number of records Over 570,000
Coverage Includes catalogs from the late sixteenth century to scheduled auctions that have not yet been held
Update frequency Daily
Producer OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.

Indexes

Index labels and search examples

Use a colon after an index label (for example, au:) when you are not certain of your search terms. Use an equal sign after an index label (au=) for an exact match search. You can search with an index label from any search screen. The information you type overrides any default menu selections. The following examples show sample rather than actual searches.

Search indexes Labels Examples
Keyword kw: coffee or tea and house+

[keyword searches the publication year, ISBN, geographic codes, map data, and all the information found in the Author, Title, Notes and Subject indexes]
Accession number no: 37993343

(OCLC)
Auction house ah: American Art
Auction house phrase ah= "American Art Association, Anderson Galleries Firm"

"American Art Association"
Citation ci: lugt
Citation phrase ci= lugt*
Corporate and conference name cn: canadian
Corporate and conference phrase cn= canadian acoustics week
Country of publication cp: Norway
Country of publication phrase cp= Nova Scotia
Date of sale ds: 01312007 (searching single date January 31, 2007)

01312007-02142007 (searching dates from January 31 to February 14, 2007)

012007-022007 (searching dates in January and February 2007)

2006-2007 (searching any day in either year)
Individual auctioneer ia: James Forbes
Individual auctioneer phrase ia= Forbes, James
Language phrase ln= kw:coffeehouse* and ln=japanese

(browse the index for a complete list of languages)
Notes/Comments nt: translation-adaptation
Place of sale ps: paris
Publisher pb: media
Publisher phrase pb= new star media inc.
Publisher location pl: china
Sale code sl: LO1703 LEVER
Sale code phrase sl= "LO1703 LEVER"
Seller/subject cx: "francis leventritt"
Seller/subject phrase cx= Estate of Francis Leventritt

Collection of James Stillman Davidson
Standard number sn: 1097461x or 1097-461x

1550463160 or 155-0463-160

9780763625894 or 978-0-763625-89-4

64002560

(for all searches, hyphens can be included in the search or removed; for the LCCN number, only the number used for storage, with the year and then six digits with leading zeros for unused digits, is indexed; many other standard numbers are included in this index)
subject su: coffee and tea house+
Subject phrase su= coffeehouses in art
Title ti: music w3 british w3 enlightenment
Title phrase ti= music theory in the British isles during the enlightenment
Update date up: 20070101
Year yr: 1971

Index use and structure

What follows is a list of FirstSearch indexes and the combination of USE and STRUCTURE attributes that can be used to access them.

  1. For any FirstSearch label where multiple USE attributes are listed all the attributes will provide the exact same search result sets.
  2. Any USE attribute that is not marked as a restrictor is available via the SCAN service.
  3. Restrictors are specially implemented indexes and are not available for scanning. Terms for these must be ANDed with other terms to limit the size of the result set. See the table provided for each restrictor to determine valid terms and their associated meaning.

FirstSearch Indexes and USE and STRUCTURE attributes used to access them. These are grouped by the type of record retrieved.

Index Description Use Attribute Structure Attribute Indexed Fields and Subfields
Keyword (kw) Any

1016

5110

2 Fields found in the following indexes:

Author keyword

Title keyword

Notes

Subject

and

008 Date 1

008 Date 2

020/a,z

034/a,b,d,e,f,g

052/a & ab combined

255/a,b,c,d,e

Auction House (ah) OCLC defined 5060 1, 2 110/a-e,n,u
Author keyword (au) Author-name 1003

5003
2 100/a,b,c,d,j,q,u

110/a,b,c,d,e,n,u

111/a,c,d,e,n,q,u

245/c

505/r

508/a

511/a

550/a

700/a,b,c,d,j,q,u

710/a,b,c,d,e,n

711/a,c,d,e,n,q

720/a

770/a

773/a

780/a

785/a

787/a

800/a,b,c,d,q,u

810/a,b,c,d,e,n

811/a,c,d,e,n,q
Author Phrase (au=) Author-name 1003

5003
1 100/a,b,c,d,j,q

110/a,b,c,d,n

111/a,c,d,e,n,q

700/a,b,c,d,j,q

710/a,b,c,d,n

711/a,c,d,e,n,q

720/a
Citation index (ci) OCLC defined 5940 2 510/a,c
Date of Sale (ds)* Date search 1145 2, 5 033/a

Only for data in YYYYMMDD format. DD or MMDD may be replaced with hyphens if unknown, e.g. 200604--
Individual Auctioneer (ia) OCLC defined 5039 1, 2 700/a-d,j,q,u
Language   (ln=)* Code-language 54 1, 2 008 <lang>

041/b,d,e,f,g,j

041/a if first indicator is zero
Place of Sale (ps) OCLC defined 5062 2 500/a

518/a

Note: Only text preceded by Place of is indexed.
Seller/Subject (cx) OCLC defined 5063 1, 2 600/a-d,j,q

653/a
Standard Number (sn) Identifier-standard 1007 1,2 010/a,b,z

016/a,z

020/a,z

022/a,y,z

024/a

027/a,z

028/a

030/a,z

037/a

088/a

440/x

490/x

534/o,x,z

700/x

710/x

711/x

730/x

760/x,y,z

762/x,y,z

770/r,u,x,y,z

773/u,x,y,z

776/x,y,z

780/x,y,z

785/x,y,z

800/x

810/x

811/x

830/x
Subject (su, su=) Subject 21 1, 2 600/a,b,c,d,e,g,j,k,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,v,x,y,z

610/a,b,c,d,e,g,k,m,n,o,p,r,s,t,v,x,y,z

611/a,c,d,e,g,k,n,p,q,t,v,x,y,z

630/a,d,k,m,n,o,p,r,s,t,v,x,y,z

648/a,v,x,y,z

650/a,b,v,x,y,z

651/a,v,x,y,z

653/a

654/a,b,v,x,y,z

655/a,b,v,x,y,z
Subject All (sa=)
 
OCLC Defined 5090 1 600/a,b,c,d,e,g,j,k,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,v,x,y,z

610/a,b,c,d,e,g,k,m,n,o,p,r,s,t,v,x,y,z

611/a,c,d,e,g,k,n,p,q,t,v,x,y,z

630/a,d,k,m,n,o,p,r,s,t,v,x,y,z

648/a,v,x,y,z

650/a,b,v,x,y,z

651/a,v,x,y,z

653/a

655/a,b,v,x,y,z
Title keyword (ti) Title 4

5245

1002
2 031/d,t

100/t

110/t

111/t

130/a,d,f,g,k,m,n,o,p,r,s,t

210/a

214/a

222/a,b

240/a,d,f,g,k,m,no,p,r,s

242/a,b,n,p

243/a,d,f,g,k,m,n,o,p,r,s

245/a,b,f,g,k,n,p

246/a,b,n,p

247/a,b,n,p

440/a,n,p

490/a

505/t

700/g,k,m,n,o,p,r,s,t

710/d,g,k,m,n,o,p,r,s,t

711/g,k,n,p,s,t

730/a,d,f,g,k,m,n,o,p,r,s,t

740/a,n,p

770/a,s,t

773/p,s,t

780/s,t

785/s,t

787/s,t

800/g,k,m,n,o,p,r,s,t

810/d,g,k,m,n,o,p,r,s,t

811/g,k,n,p,s,t

830/a,d,f,g,k,m,n,o,p,r,s,t,v
Title (ti=) Title 4

1002

5245
1 130/a,d,f,g,k,m,n,o,p,r,s,t

222/a,b

240/a,d,f,g,k,m,n,o,p,r,s

245/a,b,f,g,k,n,p*

246/a,b,n,p

505/t

730/a,d,f,g,k,m,n,o,p,r,s,t

740/a,n,p
Update Date (up) Update date 1012 2 008
Year (yr) Date-publication 31 2,4,5,7 008

* Additional information on these indexes is given in the Searching Tips below.

Record display information

List of FirstSearch fields for SCIPIO and the MARC fields to which they correspond.

The MARC records returned from this database will be the OCLC-MARC records as they were input into the system.

This database can have any valid MARC tag in it. Besides the valid MARC tags, the following FirstSearch Locally Defined fields also exist:

Bibliographic Records MARC Fields with Specialized Meaning in SCIPIO

Field Name MARC Field(s)
Bibliographic Records MARC Fields with Specialized Meaning in SCIPIO
Sales code 024/a
Date of sale in YYYYMMDD format 033/a
Date of sale displayed as an English spelled-out date 033/9
Auction house 110
Commonly used note field 518/a
Seller, or subject of auction 600
Seller, or subject of auction 653/a
Auctioneer 700
Bibliographic Records MARC Fields
Primary document type code 945/f
Additional document type codes 945/d
Number of holding library symbols connected to item 947/m
Date added to a database 947/n
Date last updated in Cataloging subsystem of WorldCat 947/p
Indicator for My Library holdings.

This indicates if authorization number's institution has local holdings attached in OCLC WorldCat. "Y" is yes. "N" is no.
947/s

Library Holdings

Field 948/a gives the ISO country code information for each library holding the item. Additional detailed holdings information is available in FirstSearch Z39.50 Configuration Guide - Element Set Names.

948
 
Document type "b" for book 949/i
ILL/Display type "b" for book 949/x

Restrictors

The following restrictors can be used only in conjunction with an index search.   They must be added to an index search with the Boolean AND in order to receive results:

Restrictor Type Input Use Attribute Structure Attribute
Year (yr) All years

Single year

Range of years
--

1999, or 2000

-1899

1955-1967

1998-
31 5
Language Phrase* No Limit

English

Danish

Dutch

French

German

Italian

Spanish
--

english

danish

dutch

french

german

italian

spanish
54 1
Library Holdings (li) all

Library Symbol
--

xxx (OCLC symbol for the library)**
56

1044
2

* Language Phrase is both an index and a restrictor.

**To find the OCLC symbol for an institution, please see the Directory of OCLC members.

Sorting

Search results in the SCIPIO database can be sorted by Auction House(5060), Title (4),  and Date of Sale (1145).

General punctuation rules

(Exceptions are made, but these are generally correct):

Punctuation Rule Punctuation Rule
" Delete and collapse $ Delete and collapse
' (apostrophe) Delete and collapse % Delete and collapse
. Delete and collapse * Delete and collapse
, (comma) Delete and collapse + Delete and collapse
; Delete and collapse > Delete and collapse
: Delete and collapse < Delete and collapse
() Delete and collapse @ Delete and collapse
<> Delete and collapse ? Delete and collapse
{} Delete and collapse -- Delete and collapse
[] Delete and collapse / Substitute a space
= Delete and collapse - Retain and index
! Delete and collapse & Retain and index
# Delete and collapse

Searching tips

Date of Sale (1145).  The Date of Sale (use 1145) is the date the auction took place. It is searchable as a number index in the format of MMDDYYYY where MM is the month, DD is the date and YYYY is the year. This can be searched as:

MMDDYYYY

MMYYYY

YYYY

Or it can be searched as a range in these formats:

 

MMDDYYYY-MMDDYYYY

MMYYYY-MMYYYY

YYYY-YYYY

Language (54).  Language is searchable as using the three-letter codes of language found in the OCLC Marc Code List or using the two-character ISO codes for languages or using the English spelling of the Language code. The catalogs include many more languages then the top represented languages listed as restrictor suggestions.

Copyright information

Copyright © 1978-2018 OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.