Is Emmett now the standard reference on Alexandrian coins?

I was looking at some Alexandrian Tets this morning online, and it looks like most dealers are now citing Emmett & Mline, but almost no one is using poor old Col. Curtis anymore.

Has Emmett now supplanted both Curtis and Milne?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

To me, that seems to be the trend. Citing Emmett and Dattari/Savio seems to be "in" now.

I have Dattari, Dattari/Savio, Curtis, Milne, Emmett, and a couple more and prefer Emmett by a mile.

 

Do you know if Emmett contains a concordance that cross references numbers with Curtis, Milne et cetera?

 

Yes, it does-- although for each coin (Emmett # + year) only one concordant entry is listed. For the concordances he cites a variety of references-- Milne, Curtis, BMC, ANS, etc-- but Milne or Curtis are the ones most often given.

 

Thanks @TIF I think I will order one!

 

I find myself using it a few times a week. I got on sale from Wayne Sayles a few years ago.

 

I also suggest using Emmett but I have had a few issues here and there. When you see the number of listings marked R5 and that coin was from a listing before Dattari, it is hard to believe there are not more issues. I do wish it had more photos.

 

I have Emmett.and use it. It is very easy to use, and it is inexpensive. Emmett numbers are easy to find. I suspect that's why you see it growing in popularity. Emmett is particulalry useful for some things - like assigning a quick number, quick rarity checks and seeing annual output of certain types at a glance. Emmett is not particularly useful for descriptions, as most descriptions are only a few words, nor for photos (there are practically none). Milne, on the other hand, is quite difficult to use but his descriptions are detailed beyond belief. Dattari Savio is not easy to use and lacks text descriptions - it's all visual - but it's great for provenancing Dattari coins and useful as a "plate volume" for the Dattari text catalogue. One of my favorite resources for Alexandrian coins is Geissen's 4 volume (5 including the index) catalogue of the Köln University collection. It's expensive (about $400 if you can find a set), but it is in syllogue format with photos opposite the text pages, and each ruler's coins are arranged by regnal year. I find this arrangement very helpful. Descriptions are in German - not so helpful - but my "numismatic German" has improved over the years.

 

Thanks for that review, Carausius. I don't have Geissen and was wondering if I should. Sounds like a yes, so I'll have to keep an eye out for a set.

 

Before you buy it, I'll add three bits of additional info on Geissen:

1. The Greek coin inscriptions are written in upper and lower case Greek, not all upper case like on the coins. I can read lower case Greek, so that's not problem for me, but some may find it difficult. It's odd that Geissen did this. IMO, when you transcribe something, you should do so exactly as it's written.

2. The collection is large, but not as complete as Dattari.

3. It's actually 5 volumes, including 1 index volume. I modified my above post to avoid confusion on that point.

 

It's an old problem. Which books to use? It has always seemed to me that many books have positive and negative aspects. I always liked Milne due to the completeness of descriptions (but never understood why anyone would have separate entries for duplicate coins of different weights or diameters). I do like Emmett and have made it my 'go to' reference for Alexandrian. With the concordances one doesn't necessarily need the other books but one does for completeness. Its a great book and very cheap through Wayne Sayles.

 

Milne has separate entries for coins of different weight and size because his book is a collection catalogue, not a series catalogue. He needed to list every coin in the collection, or it would merely be a "collection summary." BMC catalogues do the same thing for the same reasons. I actually consider this of some benefit. Often when authenticating a coin, we ask "what's the range of weight and size for this type"? These days we can go to acsearch or coinarchives for such information. Internet wasn't an option when Milne and the BMC catalogues were issued!

 

http://www.coinsweekly.com/en/Egypt-and-Alexandria-A-brief-numismatic-survey/4?&id=2305

I found several things of interest in the above link to an article by Ursula Kampmann including the fact that she has a book on Alexandrians. If we are not bothered by the book being in German (the article is English), does anyone have anything to say about the book?


The article included comments on why there are so many types for Antoninus Pius, so few for the Severans and why they made Alexandrian coins in Rome under Elagabalus. I do like books on coins that are not just catalogs.

 

I believe Kampmann's book is entirely illustrated by ex A.K. Collection coins. I dont own the book, but any A.K. Collection Alexandrian I've bought had a "(this coin)" cite to Kampmann.

Edit: See some of the A.K. Collection coins detailed in this link, http://ak.cngcoins.com/level2.asp?Lot=621
I believe the "Alexandria" cites are to the Kampmann book.

 

Well then, Doug-- sounds like you should get that book! It's always fun to see coins you own in their literary habitat

 

I do have the Kampmann/Ganschow book.
I've not used it much so far, because I find Emmett easy to use and Kampmann is written in german.

But, what I find nice in this book is the number of illustrations (pictures are quite good) and the coins listed by regnal year (not an issue when for Domitius Domitianus but useful for Hadrian or A-Pi)

The price is around 50 euros

Hope that helps
Q

 

Thanks. Not being available from US sellers is a bigger problem than being written in German. Maybe someday?

 

I could have been given incorrect information, but when I once asked CNG about the "Alexandria" referenced in one of the A.K.Collection lots, I was told it was Wendelin Kellner's Die Münzstätte Alexandria in Ägypten Von Kleopatra bis Arcadius.

That would be this book (I don't own a copy).

 

Emmett is close to a complete list of types, which is why it is the most-cited work. However, as others have noted, it lacks photos and the type-descriptions are so concise that you don't always get a mental image of what is on the coin.

I recently wrote a page on "year 5" coins of Severus Alexander:
http://augustuscoins.com/ed/SevAlex/

For most issues the concise listings of Emmett cause no problems. However, for these types there is a problem. Emmett has the flaw that it does not distinguish "Roman style" from the usual Alexandrian style. So, two easily distinguishable types (see my page) are not distinguished. In Milne, you can tell them apart using the reverse legend which Milne gives and Emmett does not (Roman style spells out the year, Alexandrian style does not). For year 5 the type of Serapis standing is listed by Emmett as occurring in years 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, and 12. I think it occurs in both styles for years 4, 5, and 7 but only Alexandrian style for years 8, 10, 11, and 12, but there is no way of knowing from Emmett alone.

Geissen (the 5-volume work) has many photos which are helpful to get a feeling for what the coins are like. If a piece is "Roman style" you can look at it and tell. You can't judge artwork from Emmett's words "Serapis standing."

The bottom of my page lists some good reference works on Alexandrian coins, including sale catalogs. Forschner has 1400 coins photographed. Yes, it is in German but the pictures are in English!

 

And here is the problem with books. Authors and publishers have a silly desire to sell enough copies to break even on the project. Specialized numismatic books in 5 (or 50) volumes selling for a hundred dollars a volume tend to sell a few copies and rise in price when out of print producing a profit for people other than those who undertook the project. Emmett filled with 4000+ images of the coins would be easily 20 volumes the size of the current book. If we decided it as important to list separately all the legend variations even if we did not try to illustrate them we might double that count. Worst, the book lists a rather high number of R5 coins meaning that the listing was made from a single specimen or possibly two but some of these have not been seen since they were listed before many coins were photographed. The best possible book would not be anything approaching complete. Finding and photographing a second and third 1400 coins not in Forschner would be a lifelong quest. The book would be like the Oxford English Dictionary. Perhaps that is why they now issue the dictionary online and why the new works on Provincial coins, including Alexandrians seem likely to be online publications. Those of us who want photos can access then online.

In 2002, we worked on the images for Victor Failmezger's Late Roman Bronze Coins. The author humored me by allowing production of the CDRom containing the images from the plates. I was of the opinion then that the book could have been made smaller and cheaper by omitting the color plates and relying on the CDRom. I was wrong. Relatively few people wanted the disk. Now, 15 years later, I still believe that the answer is softcopy images but now it is online rather than a CDRom. I am happy to see a project on Alexandrian coin images online not unlike the one available for RIC V part 1. They are working on it, in pieces. Perhaps more people now will decide that thousands of searchable online images is better than a paper page with a few hundred.

Where does one buy Forschner? ...Geissen? I'd have to consider carefully just how many 300 euro books on Alexandrian coins I need.