Sear's new 5-volume
Roman Coins of course includes many more coins than
his old one-volume version first published in 1964. However it
still includes nothing like every published
type and variety. It is an expanded handbook, which makes no attempt to be a definitive
catalogue.
Sear lists coins first by ruler, then by
denomination, finally by
reverse type in alphabetical order. The reader will therefore find it very difficult to reconstruct what mints a particular emperor used, and in what chronological order he produced
his types at each
mint. But one needs precisely these two facts, where the coins were struck and in what order in what year, to make historical sense of the coinage. So Sear's book cannot provide the basis to investigate or truly understand any serious numismatic question.