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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Orielensis, post: 3496337, member: 96898&quot;]Medieval numismatics can feel a bit like a swamp to novice collectors: impossible to navigate, easy to get stuck in, full of alligators and blood-sucking insects.</p><p><br /></p><p>First of all, there currently is no single catalogue that would allow a useful overview of medieval European coinage. While there are comfortably usable reference works for some areas (e.g. crusader states), the literature on other fields (e.g. the German-speaking lands) can be very confusing and requires reading skills in multiple languages. Secondly, medieval coins can be much harder to ‘understand’ than ancient coins, particularly due to the widespread absence of clear legends or ethnics as well as an iconography that is not intuitively accessible for modern collectors. Finally, more common and thus affordable medieval coins are regularly sold either without any references, with only vague attributions, or accompanied by false information. Though this might in some cases be part of a ‘sales strategy,’ it more often reflects the general difficulties of this collecting area.</p><p><br /></p><p>Therefore, instead of another &quot;pile-on what we have&quot; thread, why don&#039;t we do a &quot;pile-on what we know&quot; thread? In irregular intervals, I’ll use this thread to post write-ups on medieval European coin types that a novice collector might encounter, and hopefully others will join in and do the same. “Medieval European coins” in this sense means everything minted in Europe, including Britain and the Latin East, between 500 and 1500 AD. Brief excursions into the 1500s might now and then be necessary. Comments, corrections, coin pictures, and additional info are, of course, most welcome.</p><p><br /></p><p>The aim of this thread is to provide some hopefully useful background information for those who either start collecting medieval European coins or take a side interest in it. I’d like to encourage everyone to post common coins rather than highlights – people owning or considering to buy early Italian ducats, Anglo-Saxon sceats, or Merovingian tremisses usually already know quite a lot about these coins (or just have too much money). I’d also propose to exclude Byzantine coinage since there are many specialized threads as well as a bunch of introductory books and catalogues dealing with these.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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