Picked these up on Amazon not too long ago. They were $17 each and I had gift cards to burn off. Not much of doing book reviews, but these are my thoughts on them. The author made posts of them on Forvm and PCGS Boards & even contacted me to use an image of a coin of mine of Julia Maesa for Vol. ii. @maridvnvm also has many featured. What makes these books a bit different than ERIC or the like is this one tends to focus on how rare a type is via the portrait and bust style, mainly the hair & how it's styled or what the empress is wearing on her head, or even something as simple as pearls or no pearls. There is, of course, some separation with the reverses i.e. stars & their placements, or, something a god may or may not be holding and what not. Vol II also features eastern mints. There are also hybrids featured as well. I actually found it pretty interesting & many of my coins would fall into the "scarce" to rare category the books place them in. I did find the photos were clear enough to actually see the differences, but others with worse eyesight than me may need a magnifying glass. The authors tended to use how frequent the coins & their types come to market, i.e. auction houses, Vcoins, how many are in collectors online galleries and so forth. Some I actually agree with, few I do not. Getting these books has made me focus a bit more on the bust types a bit more, but I doubt it's going to change the way I collect the empresses. I also doubt 90% of the collectors of ancients will care about minute details or even place more of a $ amount cause of it. It is interesting to look through and give some of your empress coins a second or even third glance. Both are 94 pages & all photos are in black and white. Rarity is based on the "common, scarce, to R1 - R4" style we see in other books. As I type this the authors told me that the next book will be focusing on Septimius Severus. @maridvnvm may know more since that is his & Doug's area. Vol. iii of the empresses "may" be worked on after that.
Sweet thanks for the review Mat.. I'll have to grab them and keep an eye out for when the Sept Sev comes out.
@Mat Thanks for the book review. I have a coin club friend who collects Roman women on coins. I will glance through the book and give them to him (to save limited book shelf space).
I had no idea they existed. I can't help wondering if they have any of the Domna coins that I'd bet they don't have.
Thanks for the review! I'm looking to pick up a few books in the near future and you're tempting me with these even though I hardly collect empresses.
I'm pretty generous with the likes and that means I've taken the time to read your post, but I'll admit I've been lackadaisical in posting replies. I do want you to know I very much appreciate your review and I am on the lookout for these volumes now. -d
My copies of the book arrived in the mail yesterday and I've looked through them in a fair amount of depth. Some things the books do DIFFERENTLY than other reference works: It only includes denarii and antoniniani. Gold and base-metal coinage is not listed. It arranges them by reverse TYPE, not reverse inscription. Thus, denarii of Faustina Senior with Vesta on the reverse are listed together, regardless of whether the reverse inscription reads AVGVSTA or VESTA Some things the books do WELL: EVERY known bust type is represented, described, and illustrated EVERY COIN given a number is illustrated, not just described Coins of mints outside of Rome are included and illustrated, so that one should be able to attribute to mint with a bit of comparison. Every entry also contains cross-references to RIC, RSC, and Sear (I have not checked these for accuracy, however). Some things the books do NOT do well: The described inscriptions are often in error, particularly in the Julia Domna section. Coins that clearly read IVLIA AVGVSTA in the photos (and the standard reference works) may be listed as having a IVLIA DOMNA AVG inscription in the description. Similarly, the denarius with Cybele standing, with a clear photo reading MATRI DEVM on the reverse inscription, is described as reading MATER DEVM. ALWAYS cross-check your coins against the PHOTOS, not the description. English is not Temeryazav and Makarenko's native language--I get that--but they could have benefited greatly from a copy editor whose native language is English. There are extraneous (ungrammatical) commas thrown all about its stilted prose and misspellings abound. If this book is print-on-demand and the authors would like me to correct it, I volunteer my services to do it for free. Perhaps @maridvnvm could let them know of this.
