Suggestions of literature to study?

Was being facetious Spargrodan, I am the author.

And wow, I can't believe I wrote that seven years ago. I'm surprised I've been on this forum for that long. I thought I'd only joined a few months ago!

Truth is, in the span of those years work has gone very slowly. Although I expect the pace to pick up the fact is that it's an enormous amount of work. Where in ERIC II it might have taken me a week or two to get through the coinage of a well-known emperor it now takes months. There is no non-shortcut way to speed things up except maybe to outsource the research. Now that I'm in a lot better shape financially it's a possibility (anyone looking for some part time work?)

I made a few fateful initial choices when I began on the 3rd edition. One was the scope which I've mentioned. The other is that working on emperors at random, which was done to force myself to be as consistent as possible throughout, has as a negative consequence that I can't print any of the sections until the whole thing is complete. As I see things now, ERIC III will most likely be broken up into six different books and they're all going to have to go to the printer as a set (which can then be broken up to be resold separately).

If anyone's interested in the project please email me or post a new thread. I'm very engaged in seeing feedback, especially from current users. Also, there is a barebones page at http://dirtyoldbooks.com/eric3/ which I regularly update to show my progress.

Rasiel

 

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Seems like we're thinking alike when it comes to collecting and budget.
I haven't read any of the sources you mentioned but I've heard about them. Going to have a look, great with online resources as books, as you say can be very expensive.

 

@Clavdivs Good tip!

@David Atherton That list is a whole library! I will have some reading to do for the next decade, great thanks!

@Dafydd Tackar! Yeah will for sure do the reserach first and then buy.

@panzerman Good tip! For me probably more fun read as I'm not having the founds to collect gold coins.

 

@Suarez Haha I didn't pay too much attention to the nickname.

I actually bought some of your more slimmed pdf parts of the book as well and started to look through them this weekend as the book itself haven't yet arrived. I like them, they are very useful and easy to pick up if I’m on the computer, mobile or tablet. Must have been a humongous task to put the book together! I'm very much interested in the project so I will follow your progress!

 

That is a great start to collecting the Flavians! This book has been an absolute must for me. It is much more than a catalogue. There is much good reading contained within. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

 

MY GO-TO's:
- Sear / Seaby - Roman Coins I & II - Especially book I for my Roman Republic focus

- Sear / Seaby - Greek Coins I & II - My Makedon, Diadochi, Carthage, and Sicily focus

- Thurlow & Vecchi - Italian Cast Coinage - My focus on Aes Grave

- SNG Copenhagen, the original "North Africa, Syrtica, and Mauretania"
(Warren Esty helped me get this!) - My focus on Carthage

- David Hartill - Cast Chinese Coinage

- Flinders Petrie - Historical Scarabs (with several other Egyptian / Scarab books) - opens a whole new world of Historical collecting beyond coinage.

- Coin-Talk friends and experts ... ideation, attributions, target coins, knowledge, fake identification, encouragement, friendship, coin contacts, acquisition sites...

- Around SEVERAL HUNDRED other saved reference sites, pamphlets, catalogs, books, etc..

 

I can only agree I got it the other day and really like how it's written so far. The section with historical info and on top of that great descriptions of all existing variants and types. Superb resource. Now I just need the other volumes to cover my area of interest Nerva - Hadrian and the provinces. XD It's a bit of a pity that the books are soo expensive but if one consider all hard work required to put them together I think it's not that expensive.

 

Thanks for the tips! Are Sear / Seaby books similar to RIC and RPC? Thinking of how big difference there are between them haven't got the opportunity to compare.

 

I do not have RIC because I am not sure its covers the Republic. I started with Sear and rely on them because he covers Republics. LOL, besides, mine are marked up, underlined, bookmarked, dogeared, etc.

And, my Sear Greek I & II have been good covering Makedon, Carthage, and Greeks for me.

Otherwise, ACSearch, Wildwinds, and other websites have been great.

 

Okey! I don't know if there is a RRC version for RIC? I'm kind of picky with my books mainly bookmarking them but rarely write in them, you use them as they should be used.

 

I don't know about that, Ras. You know what you're thinking, but for what it's worth, Q. David Bowers, at Whitman, heads up a team that is producing an exhaustive encyclopedia of U.S. Obsolete Paper Money. They are releasing them a volume at a time, are presently up to volume nine (I have the first 8) and they are projected to go to 15 huge (700 page) volumes. Volume 1 is copyright 2014, Volume 8 2017. It might not hurt to let him know about what you have and see if he can give some positive input (or assistance in team building?).

 

It's a business problem rather than a technical one. Any time you send a project to a printer, whether it's a single page flyer or a ten tome set, a big portion of the costs ends up being the setup fees. There's really no money to be made in reference works. At least not in numismatics that I can see. I wouldn't be surprised if even Whitman did little better than break even.

I calculate the whole of RIC's volumes would have a printing cost of around $70. Even with a list price some 20 times that figure I don't think anyone ever made much selling them. And that's the 'gold standard'... imagine for smaller works!

Rasiel

 

Brian, do you have any other suggestions for Carthage coins?

 

Sear Greek I and II, ACSearch will be the auctioned coins, and not always a great source for entry level priced or many of the bronzes.

 

Thanks! I've been using magnagraecia.nl/coins/ for a start for types, variety, and references (MAA, SNG Cop, etc) then ACSearch, CNG, and Vcoins for "market price". I recently was on this Forum page and saw the reference list at the bottom and was thinking I should get one, but what is available, what is best, and at what cost.

 

Most of my research is online, as in what you have. My best book is my sng cop north africa