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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;FitzNigel, post: 3257084, member: 74712&quot;]Frynas, Jędrzej George.&nbsp; <i>Medieval Coins of Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland</i>.&nbsp; London: Spink, 2015.</p><p>ISBN: 978-1907427527</p><p>Cost: £45</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]855944[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Grade: B</p><p><br /></p><p><i>Medieval Coins of Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland</i> is an excellent catalogue of these fascinating coins from eastern Europe.&nbsp; The layout is logical, with a section for each kingdom or duchy then broken down by issuing authority (be it the king or regional issue) in roughly chronological order (I say ‘roughly’ only because some kings had an interruption in their rule, and rather than give them two section, their coins are kept in one).&nbsp; Most of the coins listed have a color photograph include, and those without the photograph have a line drawing.&nbsp; The author noted that he did not receive the cooperation of the Czech National Museum, which accounted for more of the Bohemian coins having line drawings than the rest of the catalogue.&nbsp; Frynas also informs the reader that he is hoping to issue a second edition to rectify this, relying on collectors to help fill the gaps.&nbsp; Each section begins with a nice history of the coinage, relative rarity is given for every coin, and each issuing authority has a brief biography to help put the coins within their historical context.</p><p><br /></p><p>While there are many good aspects to Frynas’ book, there are a few issues.&nbsp; My primary complaint is that it is incomplete.&nbsp; In several places, Frynas’ notes that the book is only including coins which can be accurately attributed to an issuing ruler, and that there are more pieces which are anonymously issued and the scholarship has yet to be done to determine when and by whom these coins were released.&nbsp; While I applaud Frynas’ honesty in his omissions, I think many who collect coins of such early periods of history are, and should be, comfortable with a certain amount of ambiguity.&nbsp; There are other issues which could potentially be included in this book which were not, such as the Ban issues of Slovenia when under Hungarian rule.&nbsp; Frynas notes this, but also makes us aware of&nbsp; Dimnik and Dobrinić’s book on <i>Medieval Slavic Coinages in the Balkans</i> (also by Spink) which could fill these gaps.</p><p><br /></p><p>While the text has clearly defined the end of “medieval coins” as when the beginning of dates on coins can be found, this does feel a little arbitrary, and a little frustrating that some of the most common (and I suspect more collected) hammered coins from Hungary, the “Maddonnenmunzen,” are not included (aside from the first issue by Matthias Corvinus, 1458-1490).&nbsp; Nevertheless, this is an excellent resource for Eastern European coins, particularly for an English speaking audience (the vast majority of the books in the thorough bibliography are not in English - only a few general works, and two books on gold florins of Hungary).&nbsp; I hope that the proposed second edition will eliminate many of the known flaws in the first.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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