So far 2017 has been the year of coin books for me. I have only added 3 coins to my collection so far, while I have added 17 numismatic references. To that end my question is about Harold Mattingly's "Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum." I alread have Vol. 1-4 of the late 1960s edition of the books, but I have come across the complete 2005 Spink edition at a really great price. I am wondering how the two editions compare to one another in quality? Thank you in advance for any thoughts you might have.
I'very been looking more & more at reference books. Like you I'm thinking books instead of more coins. Of course I've already bought a few coins this year. I would love to obtain decent books this year. But I can't answer your question, but find myself wanting to know the answer.
I have not seen the 2005 set but there are differences. Volume V is advertised as a revision and my old set of IV and V came in two books (plates bound separately) which is not mentioned for the reprints. The ad I saw said they made an effort to reproduce the plates with continuous tones. By my standards, the original colotype plates were nothing all that special. I would really like to know details about the revisions made to volume V. It was terribly out of date regarding the branch mints. Was that improved? RIC was worse, IMHO. 25 years ago, I was able to get a group of 'security photos' showing the actual coins in the BM collection for my interest areas. They were not cheap and had to be special ordered from the BM but included coins they obtained since the books were published. In the case of Easter Severans, that was double the number of coins they had before. Perhaps one of our UK members knows if you can still get these.
According to some reviews I am reading the 2005 Spink edition is said to be superior to the British Museum reprints of the 1960s at least in terms of the quality of the plates.
