I have recently gotten into collecting The Ladies on Roman Coins. Related to that, for Christmas I was gifted two of the volumes of Roman Coins and Their Values (RCV) by David Sear. I have to face the fact that I will never have the budget to purchase the full set of volumes of Roman Imperial Coinage (RIC) since they would cost more that I paid for my first new car. However, I dearly like being able to reach for a book in order to confirm the identity and relative value of a coin before I buy. Since the remaining three volumes will cost me no more that that of two coins, it kinda seems like a no brainer. I guess I just need validation. Besides, I needed an excuse to make my first post here. Opinions? Alternatives? Tnx.
Books are fun but cost more than online resources. Sear is a fine resource for a beginner but fine details and the numbers most people quite will be better served by RIC or online resources. I still would suggest reading Sear. They are not wastes of money by any means.
Welcome to CT!! Look no further for validation. Like you, I equate books to lost coins. Go to online Resources to save dough though. Coins are fun and so is history! This is your hobbie Taylor made for you.
I have all 5 volumes of Sear's Roman Coins and Their Values and I think they are the most useful references for the general collector of Roman coins. I have RIC and BMCRE, too, but Sear is my "go-to" for most coins. The introductory material is very helpful and important. If you're into the Roman ladies on coins, I highly Recommend @Jasper Burns ' Great Women of Imperial Rome.
I am a big fan of books. Yes, you can get a lot from web sources alone, but I still think books pay for themselves many times over (with knowledge which enables to appreciate the coins you buy and helps you choose wisely) and pleasure gained from the coins you seek and acquire. I have written many web pages on ancient coins. http://augustuscoins.com/ed/ At a certain level, you can learn a lot from sites like mine without buying books. However, at a deeper level you should realize that the people who write web pages get their knowledge from books and articles and you could too.
Welcome to Coin Talk, zenlib. I feel your pain - I too cannot afford RIC - it costs more than my current car! However, have you tried OCRE (Online Coins of the Roman Empire)? Once you get the hang of it, it is quite easy to use, and it is arranged by RIC numbering. http://numismatics.org/ocre/results I also use Wildwinds, acsearch, Vcoins, and other online sources to attribute coins and find that by "triangulation" of results, I can usually figure out what I have (and when I can't, the good folks at Coin Talk can lend a hand). I know it goes against the grain with many collectors, but I have found that the Internet has made ancient coin attribution much, much more fruitful, fun, and accurate than the hours I used to spend in libraries c. 1988. Mostly this is because of the images, but searches and online forums like this one make a big difference as well.
The effect of digital photography on our hobby can not be dismissed. Being able to view enlarged details without screening for traditional book printing and the low relative cost per image is wonderful. There is one other thing to consider. I previously maintained that a problem with books was that they can promote errors for decades after the scholarship on the matter has been updated while websites are relatively easy to correct and update. I was correct then but now discover that I am part of the problem rather than part of the solution. My website contains errors ranging from typos to ID issues due to new scholarship but I no longer recall the procedure for updating the site. Websites can disappear without notice and in so doing can clean up such trash but material good and bad can remain untended for what seems like eternity. I would suggest that everything posted should disappear after a set time but the fact remains that 99% of what was posted on my site twenty years ago is as valid as it was then. This alone has kept me from taking down my site. What it comes down to is any information source must be read with a critical eye and it is up to the reader to check facts lest they lead to error. Wikipedia, for example, allows many people access to maintain the material and update as needed. Most of our individual sites, mine, Valentinian's, CNG, Coin Talk and many others, serve at the mercy of forces the reader may not understand.
Doug makes an excellent point - the Internet is both impermanent and prone to errors. In an effort to offset these problems, I create files via pdf/jpg for virtually everything I find on a specific coin. If the website disappears, I still have the image and info, even if the link no longer works. By creating these files from multiple sources (auctions, wildwinds, OCRE, etc. etc.) I can, I hope, winnow out the errors by comparing and contrasting. It is, like all systems, imperfect. Of course when pdf and jpg become defunct I will be back to square one. Meanwhile, I have 300 year old books that are quite readable still... As Kansas sang, "nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky..." and that isn't even correct! P.S. Doug, I use your webpages A LOT and never once have I found a typo.
Hi, and welcome here @zenlib You might find useful to acquire "the coinage of roman empresses" by Temeryazev & Makarenko, they are easy reading and 17 $ per volume (two volumes) : https://www.amazon.com/Coinage-Roma...nage+of+roman+empresses&qid=1579642458&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Coinage-Roma...nage+of+roman+empresses&qid=1579642458&sr=8-2 Q
A heartful thank you to you all who responded to my inquiry. Not only do I feel validated but I got more information, references, and stuff to follow up on. Most of all, I don't think I have ever been on a message board that had zero junk posts. For those that might be interested, there is a book by Guy De La Be'doyere entitled "Domina. The Women Who Made Imperial Rome." While it is history, the author says he was inspired to write it by a cistophoric tetradrachm of Claudius and Agrippina the Younger. It has a few pictures of coins but, like I said, its history … sometimes dry but always readable. Thanks again.
Cistophorus of Claudius and Agrippina the Younger. 26 mm. 10.28 grams. TI CLAVD CAES AVG AGRIPP AVGVSTA Jugate busts left DIANA EPHESIA Cult figure of Diana Ephesus standing facing, polos on head. RIC I Claudius 119 "R, c. 41-42 and 50-51." Sear I 1888. RPC 2224. Struck "AD 51." Yes, it is pretty inspirational coin type!
Hi Zenlib, You might be a good candidate for my ERIC II if your primary interest is in ID'ing coins and getting a sense of rarity. It has all the RIC and Sear entries (and all of it in color) and is only $50 these days. So far every review has been 5-stars on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Eric-Encyclopedia-Roman-Imperial-Coins/dp/0976466414 It doesn't replace RIC which is still very valuable for its introductory chapters but I think I can say with confidence it's a much better catalog (the reference or "tool" part). The next version will be vastly improved but is progressing very slow. The last of the ERIC II's will be sold long before the third rev goes to press. In a very literal sense I've devoted my numismatic career to outdoing RIC. Almost twenty years later and I'm only halfway there. It's a lot of work you could say :- ) Sorry to toot my own horn! Rasiel
You don't have to buy the entire set at once. Invariably, you will find numismatic book dealers splitting a set of RIC and selling it as separate volumes. Buy it one volume at a time as budget permits. Vol 1 and most of vol 2 of RIC have been published in new, revised editions and I think revised editions of some other volumes are planned. You might start with those revised editions, and once or twice per year add a reprint edition of those volumes for which revisions are not currently planned.
RIC really is not one work in ten volumes but over ten different books that share a name. Until recently we thought of it as just ten but they started breaking down the reissues so you need both the new and old volume two if you are to cover the entire period and still have the latest update. Some of the RIC volumes are pretty much useless due to the publication of better options. Some are not all that great but still the latest thing covering an extensive part of one period. I believe the total of all posts on Coin Talk and Forvm ancients considerably improves the coverage of Eastern mint denarii of Septimius Severus compared to the spotty coverage of RIV volume IV. I would buy the volumes that interest you now and hope the revisions come out later for the periods you will want later. I have never been a big fan of ERIC II but have to admit that it has a lot of meat for the current discount price. I am still bothered by the problems I mentioned in my review when it was new but I can think of many worse uses for $50. For example: Have you seen the Amazon listing for new copies of Aorta? https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-lis...pap_new_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=new&qid=&sr= Really?
The prices are ridiculously high. Uncommon books, and many coin books are uncommon, are often priced unrealistically on Amazon (and elsewhere). If Amazon does not have any copies of an obscure book for sale, some seller with a copy will think it is rare and therefore valuable and price it super high. Then someone else thinks, if it worth that much, I'll list my copy too, for a bit less. Then neither copy will ever sell. But Amazon does not tell you that copies have actually sold, they just tell you asking prices. Many sellers have a computer program that gradually lowers prices, repricing them 1 cent below other listings. Over time, that will lower prices, but not fast enough to matter much. Don't think that when a book is listed for $X on Amazon, that is what it is worth. No, that is just the price, not necessarily the value.
In case anyone did not get the joke here: Aorta was a trimmed down ERIC for the market of people not ready for the unabridged ERIC II. Now I am to believe that there is a living to be made taking scissors to a $50 ERIC II and making it into a $1000 Aorta??? Carrying this one step farther: Ras gave ERIC I online free when ERIC II came out. http://www.dirtyoldbooks.com/eric.html I have a 'very rare' hardback copy of ERIC I (not available on Amazon?) inscribed to me by the author stating I was the first person to buy the book. I believe a fair Amazon price for my book would be one EID MAR denarius in mint state. This book business is not all that different from our coins. Each of us has coins we would have gladly paid twice what we did and others we could not sell for a fraction of what we paid if we could sell them at all. Marketing?
I found myself questioning the usefulness of expensive books when I began collecting as well. I had little trouble identifying coins, finding RIC numbers, etc, so I surmised the internet had largely supplanted the need for building a numismatic library. As I continued collecting, however, I began to run into questions that the internet sources couldn't answer. Questions like "why is this coin attributed to a different mint than that one?" or "why is this coin attributed to time period X instead of Y?". I also ran into several cases where I knew there was further info on a specific type but seemingly all the online sources were using old info. For me, the usefulness of books is not so much in simply identifying coins but in going a step further and explaining the coins and arrangement as opposed to simply listing them, if that makes any sense. I sold my Sear books for instance because I felt they, as books whose purposes were almost entirely as catalogues, were useless once I had books that were more than catalogues. The one sear book I kept was History and Coinage of the Roman Imperators because it was much more than a catalog and had new information on many types. My suggestion if you're feeling the cost of books is daunting is to really spend some time making a prioritized list of the books you actually want and slowly work on it. I have such a list though I'm actually almost to the end of it and need to start figuring out what's next. If you focus on getting books slowly it makes it easier to jump on deals rather than buying everything at full price.
