I just got in three vols from Oliver D Hoover's "Handbooks of Greek Coinage" Really good numismatic reference books.
Tell us. What makes these books especially useful to you? What do they do that the competition does not? 13 times $65 is $845 plus postage.
How does it compare to Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum ? This was a project started by the British Academy in 1930 to catalogue Greek coins in both public and private collections. Now there are over 100 volumes covering collections from other countries. I see it referred to quite often. Any thoughts. Do any forum members have some volumes?
I have a few volumes of SNG, mostly of obscure collections. SNG is definitely the gold standard for Greek coin catalogs. But as @tibor wrote, there are over 100 volumes, so the price for the whole series is pretty daunting. Also, the SNGs are catalogs of different collections, so there is a lot of duplication, and it can be difficult to track down a specific coin if you don't know which collections to look in. The HGC series, on the other hand, is designed to identify coins, not illustrate collections, so it is easier to use. It's pretty complete, but of course with ancient Greek coins there are new discoveries made all the time. My guess is that once they get the last volume published it will be time to start working on new editions of the first ones published. At $65/volume ($130 for both parts of vol.3), it is cheaper than RIC. I've been building my up collection of this series, one or two volumes at a time. My only gripe is that I wish they've publish vol.8, since I have a lot of coins from southern Asia Minor that I can't find listed elsewhere.
These books have a wealth of info not found in other reference material, & the photos are of the highest quality. CNG also supplies an added link for the coin values that keeps up-to-date . www.greekcoinvalues.com I've got a copy of the Sicilian coinage .
I just got that too! My only grips are that the plates should be in colour. If books where of a larger format/ then the coins could be shown 2X size for clarity. Another really good project. Publish a series on Ancient gold/ Electrum coinage/ everythig coin known from 670BC to end of Dark Ages (Crowning of Karl der Grosse as Holy Roman Emperor in 800AD. Also photograph the "finest known examples" John
They also have a corresponding page online which gives values. I never found it particularly useful, but it's there.
The competition in the field of all-encompassing catalogue of Greek coinage would be Sear's "Greek Coins and Their Values" and Head's "Historia Nummorum". If we look at some early entries in Volume 1 of HGC and compare to the others... Historia Nummorum: Sear: HGC... So - compared to Sear, a lot more coins described and illustrated, plus more information about the coin issuing cities and their history. HN has useful historical information, but not as much and very few illustrations. As David mentioned above, there are web pages associated with the series which are supposed to track approximate prices. I've looked maybe once or twice in several years. The format is quite different from SNGs - I have only a few random volumes - e.g. this SNG ANS 5, Sicily 3 - where there's little in the way of descriptive text: I don't have the ones most often quoted like SNG Copenhagen or SNG Von Aulock. ATB, Aidan.
Thanks to Aidan for the images. In all honesty, I always wondered why the publisher did so little to promote the book by providing a review with similar illustrations. I understand they assume that their target market consumers have no problem with spending $900 on a set of books. I also realize that I am not their target market. Want only vol. 6? I did not. Perhaps that is the best reason for them being sold separately allowing each collector to pick and choose. https://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Coins-Islands-Greek-Coinage/dp/0980238765
Amazon lists this as unavailable. It is available, but you have to buy it directly from CNG: Handbook of Greek Coinage
Hoover's "Handbook" series is intended to be complete for the series discussed, whereas SNG's only illustrate individual collections. Hoover's books have examples of and illustrate every type issued, regardless of who owns the coin or which institution has it. SNGs have no commentary beyond a date-range and short description of the type. In contrast, Hoover's books have substantial discussion of each series with history and chronology. The purpose of SNGs was to illustrate what particular museums had. From a collector's point of view, you could see examples (usually excellent examples donated by wealthy collectors) and get an idea of what high-quality specimens looked like. I happen to have lots of follio SNGs and it is fun to see what some major museum had many decades ago in some area of Greek coins. If a type is important, SNGs might have more than one example and Hoover's books will have only one. Hoover's books are up to date and are sure to have listed and illustrated all the types and have some discussion, whereas SNGs may or may not have the types you are interested in and they do not discuss them.
A problem I have encountered in studying from books and illustrated auction catalogs is that it is often the case that more high dollar items will be shown than things more common that I might be able to include in my collection. It is easier to find illustrations of dekadrachms than it is fractions of obols. Certainly there are exceptions like the SNG Turkey 1 (Kayhan collection) which I enjoy greatly. Old auction catalogs that were well printed and informative were likely to have as many coins of Pescennius Niger or Pertinax as they were of Septimius Severus. This makes sense since it costs the same to print a catalog listing of a $10,000 coin as it does a $10 one. This has greatly improved in these days of online photo listings. I have not seen HGC on Sicily, for example, but wonder if it varies from the expected practice of having a more complete listing of tetradrachms than litra/obol or smaller coins. People issue books that will sell and more people want to see big and flashy coins. Greek coins have a serious problem in that there are a million different ones and 90% are somewhat 'ordinary' and tend to be smaller than non-collectors expect. Years ago we got a great die study of silver from Syracuse by Boehringer and in 1990, Emilio Favorito published a 50-60 page pamphlet on the bronzes. While I admire the work of Boehringer, more of the coins in my collection are in Favorito. I tend not to buy new books until I have some reason to believe that they really improve the coverage of an area of interest rather than just renumbering the coins included. That is why I ask and wonder why publishers make me have to ask what is being sold. A comprehensive work on Greek coins would take twenty feet of shelf space and cost more than anyone would pay. That is why I suspect the better new resources will be online and electronic but it is too much to ask even online authors and publishers to work for free. I am thrilled that we are starting to get online catalogs of great collections like BM and BnF. It is a start and can benefit those who are unable to travel the world and do the research first hand.
In my frenzy to acquire this series, I "over bought" two volumes. I ended up buying two each of: Volume 1 "Coins of Italy and Magna Graecia & Volume 2 Coins of Sicily. If anyone is interest in buying these two from me I will sell at $50/each plus $14.00 Priority Mail shipping. PM if interested. Thanks, Fred (BTW: These are my #1 go-to reference books on Greek Coinage)
