Please anyone I am looking for a kind of red book for Roman coins, is there books or records of sorts for referencing obverse and reverse?
There's no exact ancient counterpart to the US coins red book; the field is far too vast and varied. But there are some good reference guides to get you started. For Roman coins there are some free online resources - OCRE (Online Coins of the Roman Empire) is a great help for researching Roman Imperial coinage. It's based on the RIC references (the gold standard reference guides for the category) but isn't an "official" online version; there are a few discrepancies. But for the most part it's a very useful and valuable tool. For Roman Provincial coinage, check out RPC Online. This website is the official online version of the RPC (Roman Provincial Coinage) references. This site is still a work in progress though; I think they just recently added Vol. 10 which extends into the late 3rd century if I'm not mistaken. Auction archives can also be helpful in identifying ancient coins. I use ACSearch.info all the time. CNG also has extensive archives, with some overlap with ACSearch. If you want a physical book - which is always a great idea - the best set of reference books you can get without a mortgage are David R Sear's books. Roman Coins and their Values covers Roman coinage from the very beginning of the Republic up to the Emperor Zeno (AD 491), in five volumes. Each volume costs about $50 so you are looking at $250-300 for the set. Well worth it, in my opinion. The books are not as comprehensive as the RIC reference books, but they cost pennies on the dollar in comparison and are more than adequate for most needs. You can find the latest edition full set of Sear's Roman reference books here on Charles Davis' VCoins store: Sear: Roman Coins & Their Values. 5 volumes complete | Roman Imperial Coins (vcoins.com) As an aside, Sear also wrote two reference books for ancient Greek coinage, and I believe one for Byzantine as well. I don't own any of these works but I'd like to someday. I hope this helps you out! Also, don't forget that this forum here is a great resource for helpful information too.
If you happen to have a Late Roman bronze coin, this site might help. https://www.tesorillo.com/aes/home.htm
Don't abuse it, but I hear there are a few people around here who know there stuff and could get you pointed in the right direction to ID what you're looking for....
For its limitations, I have found, over the decades, David Van Meter's "The Handbook of Roman Imperial Coins" very handy as a one volume book. It spans the period of Augustus (mid to late 1'st century BC) through Anastasius (5th century AD). Not all of the information is complete, but the book does convey a good overview of Roman imperial coinage.
As has been mentioned, RIC, although not always very up to date, is the gold standard reference but very expensive. However, a set of RIC Lists are online for free, and based on RIC but in the form of a large set of excel spreadsheets, available from the link below. Helvetica has created a brilliant resource that I use often. Maybe you'll find it useful too. http://www.catbikes.ch/coinstuff/coins-ric.htm
As others have pointed out, there are very few single volume references attempting to catalog all (or most) Roman Imperial coins. As suggested, David van Meter's (1991) book is good: The Handbook of Roman Imperial Coins. You can buy it on Forum for $35 (10% off for a couple days). Some people don't like the densely-packed, single-volume format, but personally, It's got lots of explanatory text, but doesn't really try to cover every single variant. I only know one volume that has attempted it -- ERIC II -- plus Byzantine! I've used it regularly since it came out in 2010, and have always suggested people take a look at it (sample material can be found online): ERIC II = Suarez, Rasiel. 2010. The Encyclopedia of Roman Imperial Coins, 2nd Edition. Tumwater, WA: Dirty Old Books. I don't own a full set of RIC, but it lets you quickly find the RIC numbers for for pretty much any coin. (Even where I do have the RIC volumes, sometimes I find it faster to check ERIC II.) (Doug Smith's review on Numiswiki.) Not everyone likes using it, though. (It's bulky/heavy, the print is small and can be hard to follow, and aside from the general historical essays on the rulers, there's not much background about individual coin types. But I accept all that because it would be impossible to cover so much coinage otherwise, and look for the background on the coins themselves elsewhere.) Of course, I may be slightly biased. I have two copies & other related material!
The closest thing to the Red Book is David Sear's five-volume Roman Coins and Their Values (2000-2014). The previous edition (1988) was a single volume, less complete but more budget friendly.
It depends on what you define as 'Roman" and "Red Book". Roman could mean Republic, Provincial, or Imperial coinage. Each type of coinage has it's own set of reference books. If your looking for an ancient coin price guide like Red Book they don't exist. The price and value of ancient coins is not as "regulated" like modern coins. For reference books most people have already responded: Imperial - RIC (OCRE online) Provincial - BMC RPC (RPC online) Republic - Roman Republic Coinage by Crawford Here is a link to an old post, same topic: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/prefered-reference-books.372412/
BMC and RIC are two separate sets of books. BMC for Roman coins, which as I said is called BMCRE, is the six volume set Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum. RIC is a 10 volume set called The Roman Imperial Coinage. The abbreviation BMC stands for British Museum Collection. The use of BMCRE from Imperial coinage is so that there is no confusion for provincial coinage; which would be noted like BMC Crete etc. RIC has nothing to do with BMC, except the do reference coins in the British Museum collection.
