Ancient and world coin books

I disagree with this advice to a point. If you only want a single volume of Sear, ONLY buy the 1988 edition. Its the last of the single volume editions, so it would be the latest number used as a "Sear number" if referencin the single volumes. Also, it would have the latest research short of the multi volume books. However, if you concentrate on a specific period, it really is very silly to not buy the Sear that applies to that range from the 5 volume set, along with the appropriate RIC.

Complaining about an $80 expenditure that will most likely help you identify coins much rarer than most sellers think, or keep you from overpaying for a coin, all while making the coins you already own more enjoyable? Sounds like a bargain to me. There ARE quite a few bad coin books, anything from David Sear is not one of them.

 

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I'm sure the multi-volume editions have a lot of useful information and are worth the money. I have several of the editions from the 80's and they're good primers at best. The early chapters are useful overviews of the denominations, reverse types, basic history, etc., but there isn't anything there you can't find for free on the internet. The catalogs certainly aren't anywhere near as extensive as RIC, and the separate emperor/era histories are quite brief. You can learn a great deal more from Wikipedia.

But of course, those editions served a very useful purpose in the days before the internet, because you had a compact, inexpensive overview of Roman coinage in one book. There's also the visceral pleasure of reading a book as opposed to a screen. I peruse them from time to time and pick up a new factoid here and there - nice little bedtime reading books.

 

Speaking of books, I recently acquired Paul Bedoukian's Coinage of the Artaxiads of Armenia. I haven't read it completely yet, but the analysis appears to be quite thorough. It's also got a lot of very high quality plates...

 

To each his own. I own the multi-volume set as well as the 1988 single version. I almost never use the multi-volume set and rarely use the single volume. I own RIC as well, but I find most of my research, for me, is easiest when done on the internet. But, like I said, to each his/her own.

 

John, if you are interested in Armenian coins, I believe i have an extra copy of "Armenian coins and their values" somewhere. Most Armenian books were published by the Armenian Numismatic Society out of LA, but they got the Royal Numismatic Society to publish this one. They had a book sale 5 years back so I own nearly every book they published.

 

I might look up pics on the internet, but always like to check their references. A LOT of coin references listed by internet sellers are wrong.Its funny, you can sometimes trace them, this seller made the first mistake, then this seller copied the error, then these 4 others copied the second seller, etc. Then, at a point, people are shocked that this ISN'T the correct attribution since its been repeated so many times.

 

Thanks Chris. If you've got any spares of anything, send me a PM. I wasn't so much interested in Armenian coins, but the book only cost $15, and it's an area I have little knowledge of. As it turns out, Artaxiad issues are basically all rare - a decent bronze of Tigranes II starts at $350 and the silver, which is beautiful and distinctive, is totally out of the reach of my budget.

 

They can be had cheaper than that. Heck, CNG had a couple of group lots a few months back. Artaxiads are scarce, I would not say rare. Any large show will have some most likely.

Since my library is packed, I will pm you when I get it unpacked and the duplicate located.

 

OK, I'll keep my eyes peeled. I wouldn't mind a nice bronze type coin.

 

As an aside, anyone wishing to study artaxiad coins should really also study Parthia. Their nobility were intertwined and the Parthians basically considered Armenia a dependency where non-brown princes would rule. This thought even continued into the Sassanid era with one powerful Parthian branch controlling Armenia.

 

I want to specialize in ancient greek coins from the archaic and classical periods. I currently own a kamarinian tetras and a hemidrachm from cherronesos. What books would any of you guys recommend? I was thinking Sears vol 1 and 2 on greek coinage. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

I picked up this Tigranes II AE15 (Bedoukian CAA 104) for about $150 at a recent Roma auction. CNG seems to have at least a handful of Artaxiads AEs at every other auction and they generally hammer between $100 - $200.



I was thinking of getting Bedoukian's book, but having to pay $20 international shipping for a $20 book is a bit of a deterrent

 

Well, I own the multi-volumes sets (The Roman volumes, The Greek volumes and even the Byz volume) ... but I still think that my David Sear "Personally Signed 1964 First Edition" is pretty fricken cool, eh?

 

Yeah, that's great Steve - a treasure indeed.

 

Personally, I wouldn't even bother with Sear, but many here would disagree with me. There are far better catalogs, and far better surveys. I think you'd be much better served by reading Colin Kraay's Archaic and Classical Greek Coins.

 

I would not disagree with that. Greek coins is his oldest standard, and not terribly user friendly. Greek coins are the toughest area to recommend books. There are just so many different areas, we really do a disservice lumping them all together as "greek". For Greek coins, you have to narrow it down to get good book recommendations.

 

I had to laugh when I saw the photo in your original post - I was expecting all Coin books and noticed a book on Pregnancy. Are you putting all the mama coins together with the papa coins hoping they will make baby coins?

 

Does that work?

 

Where would you recommend purchasing from?

 

I'm gonna go ahead and teach a man to fish here. First off, assume most of the books you'll want for ancient coin collecting are out of print. For out of print books, the first stop for me is bookfinder.com.

http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?a...tle=archaic%20and%20classical%20greek%20coins