My Antiquarian Numismatic Books

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by Andrew McCabe, Jun 9, 2021.

  1. Andrew McCabe

    Andrew McCabe Well-Known Member

    Prior thread covered my pure history books:
    https://www.cointalk.com/threads/my-history-books.381631/
    Following are pure numismatic books, almost all lavishly illustrated, and mostly dating 1500 to 1800

    Budai De Asse 1551 print from 1514 original; Huttich Imperatorum 1534 version of Fulvio Imagines 1517 with additional illustrated section on Roman Republican coins; Bayfius 1537 Trajan Column shipping; Erizzo; Strada; Enea Vico; Beger; Florus and other 16th c picture books
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    Fulvio Ursini or Orsini 1577 several editions on Roman Republican coins; Choul 1559 coins and religion; Goltzius 1566 Fastos Magistratvm; Agostini; Canini; Evelyn in English; Vaillant; Spanheim; Morell; Gessner; Oxford Bodleian illustrated 1750 coin catalogue
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    Florence 1787 illustrated catalogue of medals and large size ancient bronze coins; Paciaudi on Mark Antony 1757; 1778 aes grave catalogue with fully realistic line engravings; Joseph Pellerin's magnificently ill. Greek coins 1762-1767, written when totally blind, Pellerin lived until age 98, working and publishing to the end
    1 (4).JPG

    Enea Vico 1523-1567 Gems Cameos and Thomassin 1562-1622 Roman statues; Bernard Montfaucon 1655-1741 Antiquity Explained, Folio, 15 volumes with 3200 full page plates on ancient antiquities most with coins. These are very huge heavy books
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    The last five volumes of Montfaucon then, Pembroke Greek coins 1746 - the book is only plates; Havercamp Queen Christine coll.1742; manuscript on coins and Roman antiquities written by Napolean's general L. Gaspard Joseph de Clermont Gallerande while commander Orleans 1802-1815
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    Echkel, famous but not illustrated, and adds little on Roman coins so Pellerin is much better; Pinkerton; Mionnet; Visconti on Greek Iconography 1824, wonderful paper
    1 (7).JPG

    Akerman; Riccio; Babelon - only the first volume of his Traite; and Cohen. These various 19th c sources tend to be less useful than older or 20th c unless illustrated
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    In a few weeks I'll add a further thread on modern and up to date numismatic books which far outweigh my antiquarian books; I have an especial focus on economic numismatic history - money. And then in time, a thread on numismatic auction catalogues.
     
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  3. Al Kowsky

    Al Kowsky Well-Known Member

    Andrew, You've got a fortune wrapped-up in that library :jawdrop:!
     
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  4. medoraman

    medoraman Supporter! Supporter

    Wow. I only have a few 17th century books, the rest newer.
     
  5. Andrew McCabe

    Andrew McCabe Well-Known Member

    nah mostly worthless or cheap. It's almost embarrassing how cheap books are if you know where to look

    many of these shelves are folio sized and the books are very very huge. Some are regular sized. Amusingly its almost impossible to tell how big the books are from the photos. I realise now that I should have put a can of beer in each picture for scale. Below, tinnie included, should help
    Untitled 1.jpg
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2021
  6. kazuma78

    kazuma78 Supporter! Supporter

    Wow, those are awesome! Thats super cool.
     
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  7. AuldFartte

    AuldFartte Well-Known Member

    Those are incredible! :jawdrop:
     
  8. Treashunt

    Treashunt The Other Frank

    wonderful bindings
     
  9. curtislclay

    curtislclay Well-Known Member

    Andrew,

    A splendid collection of older works!

    However I'm surprised to read, "Eckhel adds little on Roman coins so Pellerin is much better."

    Don't you find that Eckhel's survey of the literature on republican coins, for example, is a delight to read and very informative? (Vol. 5, pp. 113-5)

    For Roman imperial coins, in any case, I find Eckhel still extremely useful.

    Is Pellerin an important source for Republican coins? I find no mention of such in Eckhel's detailed summary of Pellerin's works, Doctrina vol. 1, pp. CLXIV-CLXVI.
     
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  10. Al Kowsky

    Al Kowsky Well-Known Member

    "nah mostly worthless or cheap"
    I think if you put those books in a Kolbe & Fanning auction you'd see how silly that statement sounds :smuggrin:.
     
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  11. Andrew McCabe

    Andrew McCabe Well-Known Member

    Echkels literature survey is excellent

    Let me rephrase. Pellerin covers only Greek and is profusely illustrated. So to my is a highly attractive book for those interested in Greek coins. Echkel adds very little on Roman Republican coins that's not available in many prior works, and those prior works such as Havercamp Thesaurus Morellianus,, and Ursini, are profusely illustrated. Much of Echkels contribution on literature is covered very well by Babelon in the Traite. Much of Echkels views where they differ from priors are summarised in Admiral Smyth. Echkel preceded the great work of Borghesi who with Cavedoni, much referred by Mommsen, provides the next great leap forward.

    So for all these multitude of reasons, for me Echkel doesnt really adds anything I can't either get in earlier books or in later books in modern languages that reflect later developments. And, almost no pictures too. Pellerin is profusely illustrated with Greek coins one can study from style and strike, and the various Republican books are all well illustrated including fully illustrated early books on aes grave. The pictures matter a lot to me. So in all these context, given my library, echkel is one of my least valuable books
     
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  12. Andrew McCabe

    Andrew McCabe Well-Known Member

    One of the main "uses" I make of books is to examine the pictures, appreciate the printing techniques, the engraving, the quality of the paper, the representation in early modern periods of ancient objects such as ships etc. The sensory effect I get from books is highly important.

    Any unillustrated book has to carry a lot of weight in terms of value of its content. Hence my appreciation of Mommsen and Borghesi as both write a great deal not said before or elsewhere, despite being unillustrated, and lack of appreciation of Echkel aside from the above mentioned literature survey
     
  13. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    Again IMO, a lot of the worthlessness of books comes from the fact that a buyer will be paying more the the post office than to the book seller. Andrew is in the UK. Mailing a box full of folios to, lets say, California would not be cheap. I have a rather low value idea of my library but it is several times that of my heirs who do not care for coins and would much rather have a 1950's Dr. Seuss than a 1750's folio of coin plates. The books that survive me will likely go to recycle. In the UK there might be a better chance of finding someone with a truck who will pick them up than it would be here were the nearest next collector is several miles away. From a purely cash sense, many of these might be cut apart and sold by the page to decorators. That seems a crime but is has happened to other antiquarian books in subjects of interest to me.

    My collection pretty much starts where yours leaves off. My Akerman was rebound sometime in the last 50-100 years to include a signed letter from Akerman in the front of each volume. On this one he advises against sending coins by mail and dismisses coins of Clodius Albinus as Augustus as less likely to be worthwhile than those as Caesar because they are found with poor execution.

    0akerman1.jpg 0akerman2.jpg

    I enjoy the premise of the books. He only lists rare coins omitting completely those too common to gain his attention and lists under each ruler the highest few in terms of rarity. The drawings are attractive but not of accurate style IMO reflecting the artist more than the coin.
     
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  14. DonnaML

    DonnaML Well-Known Member

    I know it's been true since at least the late 1960s, when I was in my early teens and started buying old maps and prints from the dollar bins at the Argosy Book Store on 59th Street, that the vast majority of old maps and prints on the market (whether for a dollar or a thousand dollars, and up) were cut from old atlases and other books. (You can often tell from a page number in the corner, or the presence of text on the reverse.) And I'm sure that was the common practice long before then. It may be a crime from a book-lover's viewpoint, but it makes perfect economic sense. I own a number of maps printed in the 1500s, but only one of them was intended as a "stand-alone" map. The rest are quite small -- so-called "miniature maps" -- and clearly come from 16th century atlases. A complete atlas from that era would be far beyond my means, whereas individual maps are surprisingly affordable given their age. One of my oldest maps is this "city view" map of Freiburg im Breisgau (now in Baden-Württemberg) printed in 1549. It cost a few hundred dollars, but that's a far cry from what the entire atlas from which it came would have cost. (I was interested in it because my maternal grandmother and her family lived in villages in the vicinity of Freiburg for hundreds of years until 1940, some of them in Freiburg itself after the 400-year ban on Jews residing there or being there after dark was lifted in the 1860s.)

    Freiburg map 1549 - old image.jpg

    Separately, I am in awe of @Andrew McCabe's collection. Out of all those books he shows in this thread, the only one I have -- and my only book about numismatics from before 1800 -- is Pinkerton, from 1784:

    Title page Pinkerton Essay on Medals 1784.jpg

    Unfortunately, it doesn't have many illustrations. Its main interest for me is the appendix at the back with a quite detailed price guide for Roman coins then available on the market, which I find fascinating. I've posted pages from it in the past.

    I do have quite a few numismatic books from the 19th century, from as early as 1820, but all of them are about British coins and historical medals except for my copy of Hill's Handbook of Greek and Roman Coins, from the late 1890s. Which hardly counts as "old" in the context of books, so I won't bother posting a photo!
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2021
  15. Andrew McCabe

    Andrew McCabe Well-Known Member

    I also have a signed letter from Akerman in my copy! To Admiral Smyth, I recall, first president of RNS , famed astronomer and author of several important coin books.

    My 15 volume Montfaucon was bought in a London book fair from a dealer very anxious not to have to cart it back in his van to Wales. Weighs as much as a large human being. 1 book.
     
  16. Only a Poor Old Man

    Only a Poor Old Man Well-Known Member

    My jaw dropped and I still can't find it... That is an impressive library indeed! The last epithet I could ever think of is 'worthless'... These are hard to find valuable books. I tried out of curiosity the Montfaucon and Pellerin ones in abebooks, and let me just say I won't be anywhere near in the position to purchase copies any time soon.

    I am curious of what they look like inside. Would it be possible to have a glimpse of a page or two @Andrew McCabe?

    I really love big folios. I have a couple with some fold-out plates and you definitely need a big table to read those things!

    bk3.jpg

    cnt2.jpg
     
  17. DonnaML

    DonnaML Well-Known Member

    I imagine that it probably weighs even more than my set of the famous Encyclopedia Britannica 11th edition (with supplemental volumes, together comprising the 12th and 13th editions), which I purchased on my first trip to England in 1986, at a wonderful rare bookstore across the street from the British Museum. The proprietor was a lovely, tiny old man who precisely fit my mental image of what a London rare bookseller should look like. I don't remember how much it cost to ship the set to me in New York -- and it did travel on a ship! -- but it took months to arrive. I'm still very glad I bought it, back in those pre-Internet days when one depended largely on serendipity to find old books.

    Encyc Britannica 2.jpeg
     
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  18. Chris B

    Chris B Supporter! Supporter

    Fantastic collection @Andrew McCabe I get as much enjoyment out of my numismatic books as I do out of the coins that go with them. Right now they are all in storage (we are moving) and it is killing me.
     
  19. Andrew McCabe

    Andrew McCabe Well-Known Member

    Just bought this on Abebooks for £65. Yes sixty five pounds. Two other copies available at about $1000 each. Thing is if you search low priced book sources as often as possible, bargains pop up. Printed 1684. Translations of 24 ancient lives supposedly written by Cornelius Nepos 110-25 BCE, translated by different ppl. Screenshot_20210610-130257_Shop for AbeBooks.jpg

    This to squash the general but incorrect belief that antiquarian books are dear. Not to me.
     
  20. Ocatarinetabellatchitchix

    Ocatarinetabellatchitchix Well-Known Member

    Fantastic collection ! But I wanna see the can of beer. What do you drink ??? The kind of beer a man drinks tells us a lot about him... I wanna see the beer...
     
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  21. Andrew McCabe

    Andrew McCabe Well-Known Member

    Locally brewed London or English light ales or lagers. Meantime (made in Greenwich of course). Camden IPA or lager (made in Camden). And suchlike.

    I will share pics of the contents of these books but will do so first on twitter
    https://twitter.com/andrewahala?s=09
    or flickr
    https://www.flickr.com/gp/ahala_rome/o8G539
     
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