What to collect; how to decide?

Every so often we get the question from new friends here on Coin Talk about what to collect. A major problem is the term 'ancient coins' has about as many definitions as there are definers. When I started in the hobby, 'ancient' to me was mostly Roman because I did not think I could afford Greek and I did not know what else existed. This situation prevailed until I had been in the hobby for about 30 years (slow learner) when I became a little more aware of other cultures. Some of them made coins I liked; some of them bored me then as they do now but that is just a personal opinion and not one of which I am particularly proud.

Here on CT we have quite a variety of specialist collectors who approach the subject from very different angles but very few of us are really 'general' collectors as much as we are 'serial specialists'. I have had quite a number of special interests over the years and hope to find something of interest in the future that I do not now even know exists. How do we find these new avenues of ancient numismatic interest. Coin Talk has been a great help in this regard as we see each other's new purchases and decide we want one, too. It would be nice to have a book that showed everything that has ever existed but that would exceed my shelf space and budget. The edited version would be of value but only if the author approached the subject very carefully.

A few years ago I recommended a book for this purpose but it was hard to find in the US. Now I see that it is being carried by Joel Anderson in California. Did anyone else read this:

EARLY WORLD COINS & EARLY WEIGHT STANDARDS by Robert Tye
http://www.joelscoins.com/bookfs.htm

Quite honestly, I do not know where to suggest our non-US members look for the book. Amazon lists it between $130 and $411. You can do better. I would say the value of the book is somewhere between the Joel Anderson $20 and the Amazon $130.

As coin books go, this is quite unusual. It has only one photo, the cover pile up, but is filled with really excellent line drawings. As a photographer, I might like photos of more coins but this book includes quite a number of issues that are hard to find in easily photographed condition. The line drawings convey the information much more efficiently than could even the best photos. Their use was a good choice.

The book has sections on Greek and Roman coins that may be of use to the beginners among us but will seem skimpy to those who only collect Republican, or 12 Caesars, or Severan or ........ The value here is to expose us to what we did not know rather than to encourage us to believe we already knew what we needed to know. Mr. Tye comes to this study from what I would call a medieval/early modern bias about to the same degree as I do from an ancient bias. That made the book most educational to me.

Mr. Tye selected coins for the most part that played an important role in the economy of their day. He does not show off a bunch of rarities. That means you see Augustus or Tiberius but not Otho. Mr. Tye also approaches coins in general from the direction opposite from mine. This is demonstrated by the second half of his title "Early Weight Standards". I have always been more interested in the art and history of my coins; he is more concerned with the metal and weight. Again, this difference means I can learn more than I would from a book I could have written.

When beginners ask for recommendations for books on coins, we usually offer a mix of "....and their values" catalogs and detailed surveys of specialties within the hobby. A month ago we discussed the desirability of a book showing 200 coins 'you should know'. Here we have a book offering 1248 line drawings and explanatory text for coins we might want to know exist and might decide we need to study beyond what is included in this book. I will warn that reading it caused me to buy a few coins that I might not have otherwise. I thought that was what we had Coin Talk to accomplish. Do we really need a book to make us want to buy more coins?

 

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Yes. We do. While I do love the online world where we can instantly communicate with one another (and our ideas) it is not a replacement for books, though many I am sure would disagree. Many websites are either woefully incorrect or just incomplete. Books are a method in which we can glean the most information, and correctly (and in one place too). I am always surprised at the number of people who post questions regarding a type or series, referencing to a certain website, as if that coin or series is uber rare, unknown, etc. Some of these people are considered to be specialists. That is fine, nothing wrong with it I guess, but I am amazed that they simply refuse to buy a book. Many series can be covered in one volume of RIC for example. And such books are actually pretty cheap these days used, if you know where to look.

 

Great post Doug

 

Interesting Post.

 

Having met Robert Tye decades ago at his residence in a remote part of Scotland I can vouch for a brilliant mind that can take Numismatics into an entirely different dimension from where the mainstream publications have always led us. I hope this book does exactly that so I will make sure a copy reaches my library asap.

 

I cast my vote for BOOKS too! I work in a university library specializing in all areas of Greco-Roman antiquity, Byzantium, and modern Greece. We buy 4000-5000 books a year, and our collection currently is upwards of 270,000 items. When possible we do purchase electronic journal access, but we also retain print subscriptions. We do not purchase electronic books; our users prefer print for their research. And at present, the field of Classical Studies remains largely print based. I can't imagine a collection without books to support it! If anyone wants more information about our library, you can see our web page at https://libraries.uc.edu/classics.html.

 

I'm not really a fan of books with line drawings instead of photographs - especially for beginners. In the modern era, every book should have photographs.

That being said, it is really important to have a generalist overview book that introduces people to the wide variety of ancient coins. For me, Wayne G. Sales "Ancient Coin Collecting" is probably the single book I'd recommend to every beginner. It is inexpensive, widely available, covers just about every topic, and lets people see what's out there. You can then go deeper and buy specialist references once you get a feel for the different areas.

 

Doug,
A very interesting and helpful post, thank you.
I searched for the book in a book shop that I have purchased many books from and they appear to have copies as I bought one and paid for it and there seems to be more available. I paid £18 including domestic postage so about $24.00.
This site of the shop for the benefit of other members is http://www.galata.co.uk/store.asp
They accept Paypal and ship internationally and are good people to deal with.

 

That sounds like a great collection!

 

Man, I love what you said about not being proud about some coins boring you. I thought this was a shame to be carried alone, silently. Like when your friend has a really ugly wife but you know that she makes him happy.

 

It is. Not to brag, because I only select the books for purchase; I don't write the checks for them. But it is one of the best in the world. Scholars from all over the world regularly visit us.

 

excellent write up Doug. books are good, but the influence of CT & its members i feel can't be overstated. i started out like you with some LRB's from Crusty Romans on ebay and went from there over 14 years ago. but my knowledge and interest have grown substantially in the couple of years i've been here, and i thank you all of it!

 

I like the Tye book very much and heartily second Doug's recommendation. (I think I got it from Frank Robinson, who sent it up to Canada at a reasonable cost.)

For the same purposes of discovering new things & learning about them as well as general coverage, I can also recommend two other books: Coins of the World by R.A.G. Carson, and The Coin Atlas by Cribb, Cook, and Carradice. Both are available used for very reasonable prices through abebooks.

Coins of the World (1962) is a truly impressive undertaking that goes into rather a lot of detail on ancient Greek coinage (100 pages), ancient Roman coinage (90 pages), medieval to modern European coinage (200+ pages), and the New World (45 pages). Rather less detail is given for Australasia (4 pages), Africa (10 pages), the "Near East" (mostly Islamic, 30 pages), India (40 pages), and the "Far East" (25 pages). Over a thousand coins are illustrated in the B&W plates. The book is organized geographically and historically, with an emphasis on numismatically significant changes. It's a bit dry in places, but there is a truly remarkable range of information here.

The Coin Atlas (my edition is 1990) is much more of a coffee table book and has a lot less detail, but it has lots of nice photos and maps and there's no skimping on particular regions. It's organized by (roughly) modern country, where the history of the coinage is detailed in a few pages. For example: Norway gets 2 pages, Spain gets 8 or 9, Turkey get 8, Burma gets 2, China gets 9, Libya gets 3, Canada gets 3. There are a lot more modern coins in this book than in the Carson book.

I think the generalist needs all three.

 

Thank you for this very informative post, sir! I find it interesting that some of the greatest books on ancient coin collecting are more difficult to find than the ancient coins featured in the books.

I have enjoyed Mr. David Hendin's books immensely but the go to book when I need a quick reference of Judaean coins is the American Numismatic Association's SYLLOGE NUMMORUM GRAECORUM—PALESTINE • SOUTH ARABIA. These books are out of print but available from the Canadian VCoins dealer: Ancient Numismatic Enterprise.

 

I highly recommend Sveto (ANE) when you need something he has. He is a very nice man and easy to deal with. I have made several purchases from him.

 

It has Potamikon, so it must be good

I can't spend much of my library's budget on Classics, unfortunately. We have some nice Loeb editions and the Barrington atlas, as well as some monographs and major references, but beyond that, I'm unable to use much of the budget for something not thoroughly embedded in the school curriculum. I'm thinking of creating a basic research seminar focused on coins and antiquity, but that will take some time to develop in a way where I can justify spending big bucks.

 

In my opinion the best and most useful book in the Wayne Sayles series is volume VI, "Ancient Coins Collecting VI: Non-Classical Cultures." It is easy to learn about Greek and Roman coins. There are lots of good and some excellent books on Greek coins and on Roman coins. This book has 197 well-illustrated pages on the other cultures: Celts, Goths, Sasanians, Parthians, Judaean, Islamic, etc. and each has a map and bibliography. Obviously, it doesn't go deeply into any given culture, but the coverage is broad and not what you find in most other books.

 

That is exactly what I thought until I realized that there is a solid place or both in my life. If I were to have to give up one of the other, I would keep photos but I am solid in the opinion that good drawings are better than the average quality photos that we are given in way too many books. The Tye book has excellent drawings. In 1999 when I was doing the plate coins for Victor Failmezger's book on late Roman coins, I believed people needed a disk full of enlargeable images to see small details on their computer screen. Instead, people decided to care nothing about fine details as long as they could carry on all business on a pocketable phone with 3" screen. Today, we have tablets that compromise between the two. I believe that is also the answer regarding drawings and photos. Drawings would be cheaper to print in a book but photos reproduce better on computer screens which allow enlargement. I would love to see a website with good photos of the 1248 coin types in the Tye book but I would not see a doubling of the price of the book to see it reproduced with so many photos. There is room for both systems.

 

I understand the sentiment with respect to "modern" books, but you may be cutting yourself off from some important numismatic works if you take that sentiment too far. Before 1960, it was common for numismatic plates to be photographs of plaster casts rather than actual coins. This allowed consistent lighting and details without toning and patina getting in the way. I actually prefer this method in many ways to actual coin photographs. Until numismatic photographic plates became more common in the 1880s, line drawings were state of the art for coin publications. Some of the line-drawing artists were exceptional in conveying the coins to the reader. Dardel, who illustrated Borghesi's, Cohen's and Babelon's works was particularly skilled to the degree that you can provenance coins to his fine line drawings. So don't sell yourself short with anti-drawing bias. It was an important step in the course of numismatic books and scholarship.

 

Yes, I understand the line drawing's importance in the history of numismatics.

However, this thread is about books for beginners. Line drawings may be great for specialists - but a beginner's book, and even an intermediate's book, should have pictures. A collector of numismatic books might appreciate the line drawings, but me as a casual ancient collector would prefer to see the contrast and relief, to get a feel for the coin. That's something that line art cannot do as well.