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<p>[QUOTE="FitzNigel, post: 3322348, member: 74712"]Lhotka, John F. <i>Introduction to Medieval Bractates</i>. New York: Sanford J. Durst, 1989. </p><p>ISBN: 0942666526</p><p>Cost: $14.00</p><p>Grade: D</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]880655[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Lhotka begins his very short tract (of 65 pages) saying that he wrote this because no guide to bracteates existed in English. The text was originally published in 1958 in the <i>Numismatist</i>, (Sept. 1958, pgs. 1027-1060; Oct. 1958, pgs. 1189-1200) which is available for free through the Numismatist Archive App (provided you have a membership to the ANA). Lhotka opted to reprint his text in 1989, because no one had yet written a better guide in the ensuing 30 years. It has now been another 30 years since the reprint, and only one other English language book on bracteates has been published (to my knowledge: <i>Renovatio Monetae</i> by R. Svensson, originally written in Swedish, but translated into English and published by Spink). I cannot compare Svensson’s book to Lhotka as I have yet to read Svensson, but I suspect the two are meant to serve different functions: Svensson to give a history of bracteates, and Lhotka an identification guide.</p><p><br /></p><p>Lhotka’s book functions as an identification guide, but one without many images: just descriptions of the coins. Unfortunately, I have no bracteates to test the value of this guide, so I decided to use an example from the de Witt catalogue (which gives more history of bracteates in half a page than Lhotka’s entire book). Randomly turning to a page, I found an image of a bracteate with enough detail that I thought I might be able to attribute it. The coin had a coat of arms, which seems to be a topic Lhotka did not cover (although I now have a vague memory of him suggesting a different book in English to look up German coats of arms... which is hardly useful). So I tried another coin. This coin had two hens facing one another, and while Lhotka had a description that came close (two facing long-neck birds), the attribution did not fit the more recent catalogue. The author did warn about the vast number of bracteates, and that his text would only help with roughly 75% of attributions, so I guess my random experiment may have fallen outside the book’s usefulness.</p><p><br /></p><p>I am sure Lhotka’s book was useful in the time it was published, but sixty years on it may no longer be of much use. It can’t hurt as a first-stop guide in attributing an unknown bracteate, but it isn’t required reading for the medieval numismatist. The free version available from Numismatist Archives is sufficient enough, as the 1989 reprint does not add much (8 pages of poorly printed pictures of coins and their attribution with no connecting them to the text - however, the table of contents is useful). While I was aware of the age of what I was reading, I found Lhotka’s other work on French Feudal coins to still have worth, and was hoping for something similar with this book.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="FitzNigel, post: 3322348, member: 74712"]Lhotka, John F. [I]Introduction to Medieval Bractates[/I]. New York: Sanford J. Durst, 1989. ISBN: 0942666526 Cost: $14.00 Grade: D [ATTACH=full]880655[/ATTACH] Lhotka begins his very short tract (of 65 pages) saying that he wrote this because no guide to bracteates existed in English. The text was originally published in 1958 in the [I]Numismatist[/I], (Sept. 1958, pgs. 1027-1060; Oct. 1958, pgs. 1189-1200) which is available for free through the Numismatist Archive App (provided you have a membership to the ANA). Lhotka opted to reprint his text in 1989, because no one had yet written a better guide in the ensuing 30 years. It has now been another 30 years since the reprint, and only one other English language book on bracteates has been published (to my knowledge: [I]Renovatio Monetae[/I] by R. Svensson, originally written in Swedish, but translated into English and published by Spink). I cannot compare Svensson’s book to Lhotka as I have yet to read Svensson, but I suspect the two are meant to serve different functions: Svensson to give a history of bracteates, and Lhotka an identification guide. Lhotka’s book functions as an identification guide, but one without many images: just descriptions of the coins. Unfortunately, I have no bracteates to test the value of this guide, so I decided to use an example from the de Witt catalogue (which gives more history of bracteates in half a page than Lhotka’s entire book). Randomly turning to a page, I found an image of a bracteate with enough detail that I thought I might be able to attribute it. The coin had a coat of arms, which seems to be a topic Lhotka did not cover (although I now have a vague memory of him suggesting a different book in English to look up German coats of arms... which is hardly useful). So I tried another coin. This coin had two hens facing one another, and while Lhotka had a description that came close (two facing long-neck birds), the attribution did not fit the more recent catalogue. The author did warn about the vast number of bracteates, and that his text would only help with roughly 75% of attributions, so I guess my random experiment may have fallen outside the book’s usefulness. I am sure Lhotka’s book was useful in the time it was published, but sixty years on it may no longer be of much use. It can’t hurt as a first-stop guide in attributing an unknown bracteate, but it isn’t required reading for the medieval numismatist. The free version available from Numismatist Archives is sufficient enough, as the 1989 reprint does not add much (8 pages of poorly printed pictures of coins and their attribution with no connecting them to the text - however, the table of contents is useful). While I was aware of the age of what I was reading, I found Lhotka’s other work on French Feudal coins to still have worth, and was hoping for something similar with this book.[/QUOTE]
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