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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GinoLR, post: 24603401, member: 128351&quot;]My own modest numismatic library&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1563230[/ATTACH] </p><p>For the biggest part I should post the photo of a hard drive full of pdf files. A lot of references are now available on the web. Seleucid coins, Roman Republican coins, Roman Imperial coins, Roman Provincial coins are searchable databases, and we may also browse the collection of ANS, British Museum, BNF, and many other collections in Vienna, Berlin, Munich... Of course there are also the archives from dealers and auctioneers like CNG or others, and searchable websites like Coin Archives (but I don&#039;t go beyond the paywall) and AC Search. Old versions of the British Museum Catalogue are downloadable through Archive.org, and so on. A lot of articles are downloadable through Persee, JSTOR and Academia.edu. </p><p><br /></p><p>Of course there are references that exist only on paper, like rare manuscripts which were rumored still existing in some remote abbey you had to travel to at your own risk through dark forests and face wolves and bandits. Howgego&#039;s <i>Greek Imperial Countermarks</i> is one of them. I also have some photocopied references from the time before the smartphone and the USB storage. Or interesting rarities such as Josette Elayi&#039;s <i>Why I Became A Terrorist</i>. </p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;[USER=87809]@cmezner[/USER] asked. In my small library there is one, <i>The Caesars</i> by the emperor Julian, a French translation by Spanheim commented with more than 300 illustrated ancient coins. Amsterdam (François l&#039;Honoré) 1728. It&#039;s more a curiosity than an actual numismatic reference, there was no scientific spirit in numismatics back then, some of the illustrated &quot;médailles&quot; (that was the word for ancient coins) just... seem to not exist.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1563233[/ATTACH] </p><p>[ATTACH=full]1563234[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>One example is a (bronze) coin showing a bust of the Tyche of Arabia wearing mural crown and holding two children. Here is what Spanheim says about it (I translate in English) : &quot;<i>I will report here three beautiful and rare medals of Trajan about his glorious expeditions in Orient, that are in the King&#039;s cabinet. The first one, as we can see, represents a woman with towers on her head and two infants in her arms, symbolizing the two Arabias, </i>Felix <i>and </i>Petraea<i>. What is noteworthy is that the name of Trajan is inscribed in Greek all around, AYTOKPATΩP KAICAP TPAIANOC ΔAKIKOC, and below in Latin letters ARABIA, probably meaning that Trajan conquered her and made her a Roman province</i>&quot;. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1563243[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>The problem is that such a coin does not exist. It is obviously an Hadrian provincial bronze coin most calalogues attribute to the Bostra mint (I think it is much more probably from the Petra mint which, unlike Bostra, was already active under Hadrian, and no specimen of this coin has ever been found near Bostra). And there is no Trajanic legend around the Tyche of Arabia.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Spanheim said he saw this coin in the King&#039;s cabinet, which is now the BNF collection. So, let&#039;s go to the online BNF catalogue. They have 5 specimens of this Hadrianic bronze coin, and checking provenances I can see that three are from the collection of François Chandon de Briailles (1892-1956), one from the collection of Henri Seyrig (1895-1973), and only one has no provenance but an old accession number &quot;Fonds Général 63&quot;. That&#039;s it ! That&#039;s the very specimen from Louis XIV&#039;s collection Spanheim examined. Taking notes with a goose feather he just forgot the Greek legend was on the other side of the coin and, thinking the imperial bust was Trajan, he deciphered correctly the beginning of the legend, but instead of AΔPI[...] he read ΔAKI[KOC]. This is probably how he forged that monster, illustrated in his book. </p><p><br /></p><p>Beg your pardon?... The question was &quot;how to store antiquarian numismatic books&quot;? Oh, yes, sorry... I just store them on the bookshelf, with the other ones.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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