In 2015 had first shot at a retired dealer's library and improved mine with some old books. I also bought newer books through the regular channels. These are not the books I use most--I already had those. But, if you go deeply into the area of any of these, you would want the volume. Walker on Arab-Byzantine an Arab-Sasanian Hoover's series of Greek coins (I had some volumes, but got the rest of the ones published so far). Roman Alexandria, 5 volumes by Geissen Svoronos, Corpus on Athens All the hundreds of BEATA TRANQVILLITAS types: Roman Quinarii Metallugy That's my ten permitted images. Do you get the impression I like information? Lots of ancient-coin information is on the web. Most of it is shallow. Some of it has some depth and those sites are written by people who have used good, deep, books like these. These are not the first books I would recommend on their subjects. There are, in most collecting areas, other books that can take you from "beginner" to "intermediate." But, if in any of those areas you want to know what is known, you won't find it on the web and you will want those books.
Interesting books. I still need to get a copy of King's book on Quinarii. I wonder if my new Octavian is in it?
I love how books on ancient coins basically never go out of date. Looks like a great haul for 2015! I especially like the series on Greek coins, and the metallurgy book.
That is the question. While you have to read any book with a critical eye, some older books are just so out of date that their value is in the illustrations or even just the listing that shows the type in question existed and was known. Of this group, the only one I have is Svoronos which is mostly just pictures but arranges those pictures in a chronology that may or may not be in line with more recent scholarship. I don't have anything better on the subject so I use it worrying if I should or not.
A review of this series would be a service to this list. Is there information on the coins or just a list of what exists?
There is information, indeed. Hoover gives succinct historical backgrounds and numismatic analyses. The catalogs cover major varieties. These are handbooks in every sense of the word: small, compact, relatively inexpensive, and useful for the person who wants a general overview of a particular area. They do not go into the kind of depth that you would expect from a specialist's text, but studying them all would give you a well-rounded, general knowledge of everything that gets called Greek numismatics.
While that Arab-Byzantine is scarce, that Arab-Sassanian is downright rare. I would guess are the two most expensive of your new purchases.
Hoover is remarkably complete and I expect it will replace BMC for having citations to almost everything, especially when all the volumes are out (Let's hope the project does not stop before completion, as so many numismatic projects do). The one thing a bit frustrating about them is they give rarity/frequency but do not give prices like Sear does. Instead, the give you a link to a website which can be populated with actual prices for actual examples. Last time I looked, the vast majority of issues had no prices entered yet. So, the Greek AE type may be "R2" but you cannot see someone's guess as to retail "value". A gold stater of Alexander can be "S" while a tetradrachm "R2". Nevertheless, the stater is worth far more. You can't determine values from its information until the awkward website is populated, and even then I'd probably use acsearch instead. The volume I use most is "Volume 10, Handbook of Coins of the Southern Levant" (Phoenicia, Souther Koile Syria, including Judaea, and Arabia) and I really like it. It does have substantial discussions about each town and ruler, often a page or more--enough to be satisfying. It is loaded with very good photos (far better than BMC photos, and far more of them). Of 744 types almost all are photographed.
Warren, I am very jealous of your coin book library ... especially the CNG (Hoover) set!! => because I'm such a fan of Sicilian coins (primarily Syracuse) I have only purchased this volume (but it is quite good, so I may continue to purchase more) ... ... oh, and I also tossed-in one of my cool Christmas presents (a sweet Batman watch)
I only have the handbook of coins of Bactria of the Hoover series. And i think it is no good. There is an unaccetable amount of errors througout the book. Most seem to be due to sloppy editing. Descriptions not fitting with photos, duplicate photos with different descriptions. But also paragraphs ending in the middle of a sentence. Factual errors also are numerous, like many kharosthi legend transcriptions contain errors or are with the wrong coin. As an introductory catalog it is okay. But as a reference i was disappointed.
I really hate to have to disagree with this one. I have a reasonable sized library, perhaps 2% as large as Warren's, and have quite a few books that are quite out of date. Some were out of date when they were published. Some retain a lot of useful information even when they have been pushed aside by newer works. There are several volumes on Roman Republicans that were set back a notch by Crawford which may soon itself be getting a bit old in some respects. Warren's list includes the new Hoover Greeks. What does that set do to your previous go-to Greek volumes? RIC V part 1 is something of a joke when you look at the online http://www.ric.mom.fr/en/home which may never be a paper publication. I'd say the same for RIC IV were it not for the fact that there is nothing in print better (BMCRE V is nice in some ways but includes a fraction of the coins I know to be in the British Museum collection today not to mention some private collections. For years I have owned and loved my Svoronos, Corpus on Athens but I am less than certain just how much of the organization is as good as it was 40 years ago when it was last(?) revised. The photos are not to be found elsewhere. This last line could be applied to the massive Eastern books by Mitchiner. I was led to believe that much of his information was dated when the ink was still wet but they remain all I have on so many coins. The point is these books are wonderful but like many of us are getting a bit long in the tooth and need to be read but not worshiped. When Ras published his ERIC II, I was asked if I would review it. After some of the things I said about ERIC I, I was surprised. He said then that I was the only one still writing book reviews. I say this to all of you: Write some reviews on the books that you consider worth owning or, better yet, the ones you feel you should not have purchased. Places like Amazon books send requests to 'review' books before a normal human being could possibly have read the thing. We see fluffy reviews based on an hour's perusal. Who will tell me why I want to buy Hoover (never seen in person). JA's paragraph from this thread remains the best I have seen on the matter. If you believe in books that support your hobby, consider writing a few pages of in depth 'why' and 'how' these books are worth the not small cost they represent. Who knows, perhaps Ras will send you the review copy of ERIC III. I keep saying I will do more. Maybe? http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/book.html http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/vf.html http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=65466.0 Edit: Thanks, THC.
As long as a book thread got bumped, I was thrilled to receive these yesterday. First, Greek, Semitic, Asiatic Coins And How To Read Them, by Richard Plant. Plant offers a course in reading alphabets, from Greek to Iberian, various Semitic and Arabic, Indian, and Chinese. I intend to work through all his exercises this summer and wrap my head around reading the Eastern stuff. Here's a page of Iberian... Also, Tye's Jitals, which for some reason I thought of as only a catalog. I was pleasantly surprised to discover quite a bit of analysis. A sample...
Tye is very much the analyzer. He is a major player in the weights and metals end of the hobby. I recommend his 'amateur' book on world coins: http://www.jstor.org/stable/42678908?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents http://www.amazon.com/Early-World-Coins-Weight-Standards/dp/0952414430 http://orientalnumismaticsociety.or..._review_of_Tye_Early_World_Coins.29371420.pdf Of course you might find it for $100 less than Amazon. If not, I really made a mistake only buying one copy.
From what @Valentinian , @John Anthony and @THCoins have said about the Hoover series so far, I'm guessing that some volumes are better than others, perhaps not surprising for a series of this scope. I've been looking for a good book on Sicily - how does Hoover's stack up against something like SNG ANS, which has three volumes for Sicily that probably cost ten times the price of the single Hoover volume?
