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Message:: [QUOTE="dougsmit, post: 3170066, member: 19463"]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:  <img src="http://www.joelscoins.com/images/tye-ewcrr.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" />EARLY WORLD COINS & EARLY WEIGHT STANDARDS by Robert Tye<a href="http://www.joelscoins.com/bookfs.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.joelscoins.com/bookfs.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.joelscoins.com/bookfs.htm</a> 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?   [/QUOTE]

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