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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;+VGO.DVCKS, post: 7565897, member: 110504&quot;]...Sorry for taking this long, having found this whole thread as late as I did, but here are a couple.&nbsp; In case any of these have been reviewed already, [USER=74712]@FitzNigel[/USER]&#039;s generous call-out for alternate evaluations is especially welcome.&nbsp; In place of pics, I&#039;ll just do my dimly remembered best at full citations, in very approximate MLA (--don&#039;t throw anything too ripe!) format.</p><p>When it comes to the thorny issue of grading, this will be about trying to take the authorial intent into account, along with the state of the research at the time of publication.&nbsp; After all, we&#039;re talking about <i>medieval </i>references here; thinner on the ground than ancient ones, pretty much across the board.&nbsp; ...The only grading I ever did was of weekly 101-level Philosophy quizzes, during my glory days as an undergrad (/second semester) &#039;department assistant&#039; ...before abandoning the major.&nbsp; It was never about grading on a curve per se, but I did try to acknowledge the students&#039; preexisting frames of reference.</p><p><br /></p><p>Album, Stephen.&nbsp; <u>A Checklist of Islamic Coins</u>.&nbsp; Second ed.&nbsp; Santa Rosa, California: Album, 1998.</p><p>Grade: A&nbsp; (...Yep, staying with it.)</p><p>This is just what Album says it is --especially in this less than current edition, without plates, never mind subsequent revision of the text.&nbsp; Album frequently notes variants of given issues, otherwise without elaboration.&nbsp; But for the sheer scope of the polities he manages to cram into this, the&nbsp; net accomplishment, while less than &#039;comprehensive&#039; (a rhetorical chimera, in numismatics as elsewhere) is remarkable.&nbsp; And the commentaries are unfailingly incisive, both in the prefatory matter and before the entries for given subseries and reigns.&nbsp; You get the distinct sense that, relative to Album&#039;s acquaintance with the material --likely unequalled in the western hemisphere-- the book&#039;s concision is an accomplishment on its own merits.</p><p>Crusafont i Sabater, M[iquel].&nbsp; <u>Acuñaciones de la Corona Catalano-Aragonesa y de los Reinos de Aragón y Navarra: Medioevo y tránsito a la Edad Moderna</u>.&nbsp; Vol. IV of <u>Las Monedas Españolas</u>.&nbsp; Madrid: Vico, 1992.</p><p>Grade: A.</p><p>A thorough, reliable, and (...) thoroughly reliable reference for the coins themselves, illustrated throughout with photographs and line drawings. </p><p><br /></p><p>(MEC vol. 6: ) Crusafont, Miquel, Balaguer, Anna M. and Grierson, Philip.&nbsp; <u>The Iberian Peninsula.&nbsp; With a Catalogue of the Coins in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.</u>&nbsp; Vol.6 of <u>Medieval European Coinage</u>.&nbsp; Cambridge U P, (2013/) 2017.</p><p><br /></p><p>Grade: A-.&nbsp; The coverage of everything except the Andalusian series (plural) is absolutely top-drawer.&nbsp; The extensive commentary isn&#039;t just incisive, and often cogent; it seamlessly combines historical and economic contexts with more formally numismatic ones, relating to weight, style and hoard evidence.&nbsp; No particular segment is credited to an individual author, but you get the resonant sense that for the aggregate subject, Grierson&#039;s colleagues were very much on his level.</p><p>The only limitations are due to those of the Fitzwilliam collection itself.&nbsp; This is especially evident in the Andalusian coverage.&nbsp; Particularly in reference to the Almoravids, entire reigns are unrepresented.&nbsp; For those, you really have to go elsewhere.</p><p>...But the true piéce de resistance of these is the last one.</p><p>Dumas-Dubourg, Françoise.&nbsp; <u>Le trésor de Fécamp et le monnayage en Francie occidentale pendant la seconde moitié du Xe siècle</u>.&nbsp; Paris: Bibliotéque Nationale, 1971.</p><p>(This needs a shout-out to Rémi Thieux, of rtnumis on Delcampe and ebay, who sold me his copy at his cost.&nbsp; --Inscribed, at my insistence.)</p><p>A+++; Michelin: Three Stars ...and you&#039;ve got change left over for the gumball machine.</p><p>This is a phenomenal study of a no less phenomenal hoard.&nbsp; The 8,584 examples which could be recorded provide a panoramic view of French issues, siegneurial, ecclesiastic, and royal --comprising both early Capetian and Carolingian-- along with a broad range of contemporaneous English, Frisian and German coins.&nbsp; For any British equivalent, the Cuerdale Hoard has to be the first thing I can think of.</p><p>The photography is as state-of-the art for the time as it is comprehensive.&nbsp; Dumas-Dubourg&nbsp; (/Dumas)&#039;s attributions and other commentary are no less resonantly so.&nbsp; Her familiarity with a kaleidoscopic and correspondingly arcane range of French numismatic literature (often from journals, many going back to the 19th century) is readily matched by her incisive interpretive syntheses of it.&nbsp; ...Meanwhile, her candor regarding the inexorable limitations of the extant research is refreshing.&nbsp; Often enough, she gives you a range of interpretive options ...and, ultimately, leaves you with them.&nbsp; Almost as if to say, &#039;I took you this far; from here, you&#039;re on your own.&#039;[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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