Show us your library

Ah, here's mine!



All packed up for a move years ago and never unboxed :-D

 

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Thanks for the compliment on my knowledge, I'll try not to let it go to my head . Yes, I suppose my numismatic library does look small compared to some others here. I think there are several factors:

1. I don't have any auction catalogues in the shelf. I had to get rid of a bunch of CNG/Berk/Album etc. catalogues in my last move.
2. In some cases, I can look up information online instead of having to keep a hard copy occupying my limited bookshelf space. I prefer to use books when I can, but I also see the usefulness of doing research on the Internet as well. (Of course, usual warnings apply, and not all websites are equally trustworthy; but for that matter, not all books are equally trustworthy.)
3. There are some lacunae in the Parthicus Library. I have almost nothing on Medieval European, and not a lot on Greek (the "Greek Greeks", not the "Oriental Greeks" of Phoenicia, Persia, etc.). This reflects my collecting interests. If I decide to collect more in those areas, I will purchase the appropriate references.
4. That said, there are quite a lot of excellent, information-dense references on that shelf. All three volumes of Mitchiner's "Oriental Coins and Their Values" series, all of David Sear's "X Coins and Their Values" books (the Roman one is the 4th edition, the last single-volume edition), the first three volumes of RIC, Stevenson's "Dictionary of Roman Coins", Parthian references of Sellwood and Shore, Gobl's "Sasanian Numismatics", the Sunrise Collection, Richard Plant's "Arabic Coins and How to Read Them" and "Greek, Semitic, and Asiatic Coins and How to Read Them", Album's checklist of Islamic coins, Hartill's books on Chinese and Japanese cash, the two-volume Krause Standard Catalogue of World Coins (ANA Centennial Edition, covers 1800-1990 fully with considerable coverage of 18th century), and others. Also, I try to read these books, not just hoard them . A book is just an inert object unless it is interacting with a human mind.

 

Well.. you know... Over the years, I have benefited from several fine university libraries.


An Aisle in the 4 East Stacks at Michigan State University
(Close to the CJs ... 1979 to 2000)

The Classics Library at the University of Texas Austin is crammed into two different rooms. (2011 to Present)


Eastern Michigan University...
(2005-2010)

I was actually enrolled at EMU. When I completed my MA, they degraded my library privileges to "community": no renewals; three check-outs; no JSTOR... When I came to Austin, I had to prove my worth by being a patron in good standing with the city library. From there, I got a state library card, and from there, a UT card. Community privileges here include 50 check-outs, unlimited renewals, and JSTOR (on campus).

It was at MSU that I used their BMCs, and SNGs, and Hill and Head and all the rest to attribute "study lots" of Roman and Greek coins. I had to pay for privileges, but as a Michigan resident (and eventually a property owning taxpayer) it was like $30 for a lifetime or something. When we moved to Ann Arbor, I went to the U of M library... once... $300 for non-U people to have a card.

Best library card ever was Cleveland Public.

I grew up there, so I held a card continuously from 3rd grade through 12th and then adult. About 20 years later, I moved back to take a contract as a technical writer. But I lived in Michigan, really, home on the weekends and all. However, the library would give me a card if I had three pieces of mail at my address. So I wrote to President Clinton, Boutros Boutros-Ghalli, and John-Paul II and told them what great jobs they were doing. I got back three letters.

 

Michael I had a similar start. I had access to a very good numismatic section at our university library. My problem began when I left that institution and would buy a coin only to find that the relevant volume of RIC was taken out. Naturally when I didn't have the coin with me the book was on the selves. So coin no book, book no coin went on for about a year. Thus began my library. But on another note many libraries seem to have adopted a policy of "closed stacks" Our university still has open stacks but I suspect the Philistines are desperate to change that.

 

I have a MacBook Pro running Mojave. These are my desktop Bookmarks for numismatics.

I also maintain my logins at Heritage, PCGS, NGC, and couple of other places. But I have those on off-line reminders nearby because I am not active in those markets. Their research can be very helpful, of course.

 

Very little in my rather large library is available online in any format. The German language sales before WW2 and some US sales are an exception, available at Heidelberg and Newman respectively. But for 90%, the material in the books or catalogues is not available in any format outside these printed formats.

Younger collectors especially, with deep unfamiliarity in looking through paper, have no idea how much information they miss through an assumption that it's "all online". True there are basics such as coin descriptions. But the much longer explanations about how the numismatic information was derived, and the historical meaning of specialist elements of a coin such as control symbols or specific legend varieties, is typically never available online. Online descriptions are typically just a repetition of the legend and a description of the pictures, full stop. It is for this reason when I sell coins I include much information that isn't easily accessible, especially where interpretation is needed. For example my last batch included this coin:

Looks like a common low value type at first glance. And even if by some fluke, someone had worked through the taxonomic logic and given it the correct description and catalogue references, that wouldn't mean anything - still just a common low value type. But by having access to printed books I was able to add the following comment:

"The wing symbol is an engraver's mark, which Crawford demonstrated by showing that on this specific die, the reins are held by Victory in the right rather than left hand, with the left hand only holding palm, and the whip ordinarily held in right hand is omitted entirely. He uses all these minor changes to the normal design as evidence for a specific engraving hand that he links to the rare wing symbol (discussion RRC p. 338). All other reverses have the palm branch and reins in the left hand, leaving the right hand free to wave a whip. The wing symbol is rare, none being illustrated in Banti or in CoinArchives. The only illustrated auction example I am aware of is Coin Galleries, December 2004, lot 417 (symbol misdescribed as an apluster, with no comment on the reverse details, sale available on Newman Numismatic Portal) = Birkler & Waddell, December 1982, lot 237. There are only three symbols: grasshopper (common), ear (rare), and wing (rare, and this symbol only occurs where there is a letter P on the obverse, whereas the grasshopper also occurs with multiple variable letters and with no symbol, as does the ear symbol). The taxonomy of this issue is complex. Crawford distinguishes between “control mark”, which in practice is A, B, or C for 337/2e (cf. Hersh, symbols manuscript in the ANS), but in contrast for 337/2f only the letter “P”, which by implication he doesn't regard as a control mark and therefore must stand for something. As this is the issue where E.L.P. (“E LEGE PAPIRIA”) and L.P.D.A.P. occur on the related bronzes (“LEGE PAPIRIA DE ASSIS PONDERE”), perhaps the P stands for Papiria, though this isn't suggested by Crawford, Grueber, Babelon, or Sydenham. In fact, all say nothing at all. Bahrfeldt does comment in Nachtraege volume 3 (1918) and suggests (but without any discussion) that it stands for Publice – presumably meaning public money. A very important rarity, both due to the rare symbol as well as due to the different arrangement of Victory and the omission of the whip."

That information immensely increased my enjoyment of this coin, and hopefully it will do for the new owner too. It needed book research.

 

When your new book (Silver Economy in the Viking Age) comes with an unexpected provenance...