Is Emmett now the standard reference on Alexandrian coins?

Oops, I think Zumbly is correct. I hope @dougsmit didn't rush out and buy Kampmann's book based on my previous misstatement. I hope you'll agree that the German titles are quite similar.

 

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Complete sets of Geissen are not terribly easy to find. European sources (i.e. MA-shops) can be helpful, and full sets come up now and then in numismatic literature auctions.

 

Slightly off topic, but is Sears' Byzantine Coins and Their Values still the go to for Byzantine coins? Or has this been superseded by a more recent work?

I bought my first Ancients yesterday, a lot of 8 unattributed folles/half-folles

 

Very nice study, Valentinian. Great thread, everyone.

As someone who isn't a coin collector (although I've accumulated a few), I admire the enthusiasm and knowledge of this subforum.

 

At the risk of offending some specialists, yes, it is the go to reference for Byzantine, and the primary one the majority of collectors will need or ever use.

 

I agree fully if the desire is to ID coins. Sear is easy to flip through and find a reference number and basic information. I have spent way too much on Byzantine book (most recent Lianta) for the degree of interest I have in the subject. The problem with being a generalist collector is that the urge to buy books that cost more than the coins in your collection they cover is very real.

 

Thanks guys, much appreciated! Amazon US has a couple of new copies for $60 USD, good price and think that's a fair investment after spending four times that on unattributed coins.

 

I do not collect Byzantine coins at all (I just sell a few when the come my way) so Sear has been all I've ever felt the need for.

 

Another Geissen question: Does it list coins known to him but not in his collection. For example there are quite a few Dattari coins that were/are the only ones known to exist. BMCRE listed some coins of this group using symbols (daggar, etc.) rather than a number in some cases. In a field where there is a substantial number of rare coins, even the largest collection will be lacking some but this adding method will make a Collection catalog like BMC equal to a Type listing like RIC with the added benefits of the weights.

 

I'm not home, so can't check right now. I will do so this evening, unless someone else beats me to it. Off the top of my head, I don't recall non-collection coins being listed; and in dealer attributions, I often see coins that are listed in Dattari and missing from Geissen.

 

Looking at Geissen now. All descriptions appear to be coins from the Köln collection. I find no "type" descriptions from other collections. I should add that the listings contain concordances to Dattari, BMC and other works. Sample page pair below.

 

I'm reviving this old thread to post some pages from the copy I recently bought of the Kampmann & Ganschow ("K&G") catalog of Roman Alexandrian coins, published in 2008. I was able to find it used on Abebooks for about $50. It's certainly not as comprehensive as Emmett (it lists about 6,500 coins as compared to Emmett's 8,300). But it has (at a guess) something between 1,000 and 2,000 coin photographs (all in black and white, admittedly), as compared to the almost complete absence of photos from Emmett. Yes, Emmett has many line drawings that are very useful, but they're of types of obverses and reverses rather than of actual coins. (In addition to its photos of the cataloged coins, K&G has photos of about 40 reverse types of different deities, etc.) I also like the fact that K&G is arranged chronologically by reign and by year within the reign (as opposed to Emmett's organization by reign and by type). The organization reminds me quite a bit of RSC, RCV, and even RIC, with lists of legends and bust types at the beginning of each reign, each represented by a capital or lower-case letter.

Yes, K&G is in German, which I don't read, and it's frustrating not to be able to read all the introductory materials, but I don't find the catalog itself particularly difficult to follow.

So it certainly doesn't replace Emmett, but it's still nice to have, and I've been enjoying browsing through it and looking at the photos.

Here's the cover, with a nice rendition of the Lighthouse. (The way it's rendered, it wouldn't have looked too out of place in Manhattan in the 1910s or 1920s!)



The page for Claudius I's reign with a photo of my Year 2 Antonia reverse type (12.3). Note the list of legends, etc., at the outset:



The page for Nero (Year 12) with my tetradrachm with Alexandria on the reverse (14.88):



The page for Hadrian (Year 12) with a photo of my coin type with a mummiform Ptah-Sokar-Osiris on the reverse (32.458)



A random page for Hadrian, Year 18, with photos of some interesting drachms:



The introductory page for Antoninus Pius:



The page for Antoninus Pius with a photo of my Year 23 Isis lactans type (35.810):



A page from the Nomes coinage section (which I find easier to use than Emmett's) with a photo (N6.6) of my Hadrian Year 11 Arsinoite Nome Obol type, depicting a Pharaoh on the reverse



Another feature of K&G is the concordance tables it has at the end for Geissen, Dattari (Savio), and the first two volumes of RPC (the only ones that had been published when K&G came out). Here's an example of a page from the RPC concordance:



Finally, a page from the Bildnachweis (list of photo credits):

 

One more excerpt from K&G, for those who either can read a little German and/or (like me) are willing to use Google Translate or DeepL to decipher unfamiliar terms: a wage and prices table for different time periods in Roman Egypt ("1 Jh." = 1st Century AD, etc.), derived from surviving papyri, giving an idea of the purchasing power of the Obol, the Drachm, etc. (Keep in mind that 6 Obol = 1 Drachm.)

The wages are per day unless otherwise indicated, (Pro Monat = per month; Pro Jahr = per year; Pro Fest = per Festival.)

For example, the occupations for which wages are listed for the 1st Century AD include the farm worker or unskilled laborer, the donkey driver, the weaver, the foreman of weavers, the ropemaker, the mason, the tiller/plowman, and the watchman/guard.

For the 2nd Century, the wages list includes farm worker, porter in port, foreman of porters, stonemason, watchman/guard, nurse, deputy tax collector, actor, singer, and dancer.

Among the items for which prices are listed for various times are wheat (Weizen), wine, beer, a donkey, a tunic, clothing money for a slave, various types of slave (young woman, child, woman, young man, man, etc.), and travel money for soldiers from Egypt to Italy.