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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;FitzNigel, post: 3115970, member: 74712&quot;]Metcalf, D.M.&nbsp; An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon and Norman Coin Finds, c. 978-1086.&nbsp; Royal Numismatic Society Special Publication No. 32. London: Royal Numismatic Society and Ashmolean Museum, 1998.</p><p>ISBN: 1854441108</p><p>Cost: $85 (Currently $24 on Amazon)</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]791805[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Grade: B</p><p><br /></p><p>As the title suggests, Metcalf’s study is that of coin finds in Great Britain from coins minted between the time of King Edgar’s reform and Domesday Book (essentially the death of William the Conqueror).&nbsp; This is by no means a catalogue of coin types, but a study of find evidence to attempt to explain the monetary history of England and the flow of money.&nbsp; The reasoning for the time period chosen is that due to Edgar’s reforms, the coin types were re-minted every six years (and then later every two years come the reign of Edward the Confessor) so that any coins found in the ground can be attributed to a particular time period.&nbsp; This has allowed Metcalf to chart the distance between the mints (which are recorded on the coins) and their find spot, resulting in a picture of England which seems to focus on North-South trade along the East Coast, with little circulation of money in the west.</p><p><br /></p><p>While on the surface, this seems like brilliant research.&nbsp; Indeed, Metcalf’s assertion that single find are much more useful to monetary historians than hoards is incredibly persuasive.&nbsp; However, Metcalf is admittedly working from a paucity of material, and often relies on conjecture.&nbsp; He admits in his book that the find material is scarce, and that as more finds are recorded and available, better conclusions could be made, but his reasoning for writing the book when he did was that “...at some point one has to close the books and draw up the balance sheet (p. xvi).&nbsp; You’ll note that Metcalf’s book was completed in 1998, some five years before the Portable Antiquities scheme began conceiving of an online database of single finds in England (see here: <a href="https://finds.org.uk/database/search" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://finds.org.uk/database/search" rel="nofollow">https://finds.org.uk/database/search</a>).&nbsp; No doubt this has greatly increased the amount of information that would have been at Metcalf’s disposal.&nbsp; However, Metcalf cannot be faulted for writing when he did.&nbsp; It is more the frustration of accepting certain guesses of amounts that was never fully explained (such as how many die types were estimated to exist), or the amount of math that was used that is difficult to follow.&nbsp; I also found the lack of captions for maps to be frustrating, and only realized halfway through the book that each map contained an annulet for every coin find, but only the colored-in dots represented the find spots of the coins being discussed.</p><p><br /></p><p>Despite some frustrations, this is an excellent book for theory and methodology of studying coin finds.&nbsp; It would be particularly useful for anyone who specialized in the coins of England from 978 to the Conquest (William I’s reign is treated mostly as an afterthought).&nbsp; Otherwise, it is a bit of a tough read.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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