Hey guys, thanks for the kind words! Yes, that third edition is most definitely years away. Three full years after starting and I'm only 15% done. When I think about its progress too much it does get a
bit discouraging :-)
As for Martin's view, I give it a respectful nod and can only say in my defense that I feel this is more of a philosophical difference. I've laid out my case before the gist of which is that when one sets out to write a reference book on any subject - a book as in old school printed paper - you are married to a format and the best you can
hope for is that you optimize its usefulness for the approach you set out. My opinion is that a reference is simply a tool. And what you feel the best numismatic tool can be, again within the confines of a book, is debatable. For
Martin and many others the gold
standard for
Roman coins is all about showing the chronological progression of the issues and sorting out what was made where and at what point. It also happens to be pretty much the only format that would be followed with modern coins thanks to the built-in dating and unambiguous
mint marks that make any other arrangement seem pointless. But
ancient coins are fundamentally different. Without reliable dating and in many cases known mints we're left with puzzle pieces we can endlessly rearrange into plausible timelines but which will rarely achieve universal consensus. In a more practical sense, however informative a grand tour may be otherwise, if I'm trying to find out how
rare a coin of Licinius is I shouldn't have to wade through dozens of pages interpolated with the coins of
his contemporaries because that turns the task into a frustrating chore.
For me the perfect reference book is the one that gives me the most amount of information in the easiest possible manner (and presented the most attractively). So the way I see it we have a fork in the road; dictionary or
atlas? I've made a career bet on turning
ERIC into the best possible 'dictionary' and
hope it's judged as such by those who use it. For as
good as the
RIC vision was in following the timeline path - the
atlas paradigm as I consider it - it did so at the direct expense of everyday usability and ease of use. Even the most ardent diehard fan of this series I think has to admit that the model fails the
average collector in many respects. Likewise,
ERIC falls short when it
comes to tying together a storyline and fleshing out many of the questions whose answers take you from the level of an enthusiast to that of a scholar. But this is by design. Just as you want of a dictionary that it give you lookups with a minimum of hassle overloading it with detours, however interesting they may be, decreases the value of its primary function.
When the third edition is ready, if I can finish the course, I
hope it will be like a
good "coin dictionary": it will quickly give you key information such as a
mint date, market
rarity, value and other relevant stats. Each section, as before, will come with a modest bio and coinage information relevant to that reign. And above all else I'm obsessive in making it as comprehensive as possible because the one thing we can't forgive of a dictionary or phone book is not finding what we're looking for.
You're welcome to follow progress on this project at
http://dirtyoldbooks.com/eric3/Thanks again,
Ras
