David R Sear

[David M3]

I have invested in my refferance libary I have Vols I - III of the Sear5 waiting on IV and V, I also have a Sears 1964 Roman Coins and their Values, and a Sear Byzantine coins and Their Valuse second edition 2006. All my Byzantine coins are in bags and boxes. I have put my time in to the Roman and Roman Provicial coins. When I have the time I will start on my Byzantine coins. What books should I invest in for Provicials because I don't think Sear covers them enough or at all. All suggestion will be apreciated. Thanks.

[Jochen]

Hi David!

Provincial coins are a wide field. For electronic available standard works take a look at https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=47942.0

Best regards

[areich]

Be sure to get some introductory works first, they'll be far more useful than a , necessarily specialized, catalog.
I hear the Butcher book is pretty good: 'Roman Provincial Coins: An Introduction to the Greek Imperials'.
Or the one from Wayne Sayles. Kay Ehling's book on Germe (just in German though) explained some of the basic things about
Roman Provincials, perhaps there are more books that are more than just catalogs. If you wanted to get books covering
all Greek Imperials you could easily spend many thousands of dollars.

[Enodia]

Sear does have Greek Imperial Coins and Their Values.

~ Peter

[areich]

It's either the paper or the ink in mine but I get an instant headache from the smell, so I'll never know
what great revelations are in there. Reminds me of the smell of tomato plants.

[Jochen]

As an introduction Sear's GICV is not so bad. It covers all regions and has much additional information.

Best regards

[cliff_marsland]

I recently purchased Sear's book covering the Imperators.  It was a bit different than other Sear books, and it took a little getting used to.  I liked that there was more in-depth analysis on individual coin types.

I wish that Sear books had a rarity scale rather than value estimates.  The Imperatorial book has a concordance guide showing Sydenham rarity scales, which I found useful.

[Pscipio]

I don't think it's possible to create a useful rarity scale for Provincial coins in a book like Sear's GIC.

Lars

[wandigeaux (1940 - 2010)]

Sear's GICV is useful if you read it through several times, at odd moments; actually, I have read my copy to pieces, which is easy to do given the heavy paper stock and flimsy binding.  It gives a feel for what is out there, what it looks like, and helps to form a sense of what might interest you.  The introduction introduces, but is pretty much what he might have written for Roman imperial coins. 
By far the best introduction to the Provincial series is Butcher (although it lacks an index, a big BOO to the publishers); Wayne Sayles' book is informative, but desperately in need of an editor, and lacks the casual depth of Butcher, IMHO.  Sayles does have a bibliography and index, however, which are the first things I check out when approaching a new book, then the introduction or preface.  I have never seen any particular use for rarity scales, but that's just a personal foible.  George S.

[Andrew McCabe]

I wish that Sear books had a rarity scale rather than value estimates.  The Imperatorial book has a concordance guide showing Sydenham rarity scales, which I found useful.

I don't think it's possible to create a useful rarity scale for Provincial coins in a book like Sear's GIC.

The academic definition of "Rarity" as it applies to ancient coins, is based on X occurrences of a coin type in Y number of comprehensive collections of the series. As a hypothetical example, if in 30 comprehensive collections of Roman Republican coins, (e.g. British Museum, ANS, Hannover and 27 other collections), a given coin type occurs only 3 times, then it is judged as extremely rare.

The problem with assessing rarity of Provincial coins is that for this methodology to work, there has to be a large number of comprehensive collections to work from. This is why the "rarity" scales fall flat on their face when applied to either Provincial or Late Roman Bronzes, where museums have traditionally not bothered to try and assemble comprehensive collections. If there is not enough data, then one cannot meaningfully make a rarity table.

What one can do, is to make an assessment based on occurrence at auction sales etc, as to how common a coin is. One can say whether a coin is common or not common (ie scarce), but unless you have a huge database (I'm talking 10 times bigger than Coinarchives, or very large numbers of comprehensive collections such as exist for popular series) you cannot really say whether a coin is "rare".

Roman Provincial Coins (the book series) addresses the issue by counting the number of cited specimens, but this is only valid as a rarity indicator when the number counted is very low (5 or less). Above 5, then the issue is probably relatively common and the editors probably just included the first 10 examples available to them but perhaps if you search well there are 100 examples easily available.

I myself made a rarity scale for Roman Republican bronze coins: which is here:
http://andrewmccabe.ancients.info/RomanRepublicBronzeRarities.html

I counted 12,643 Roman Republican bronzes in making this table. Still, it is really only valid as far down as "very rare". For coins of greater rarity, one cannot really tell from the few occurrences just how rare they rare. One cannot distinguish between "very rare" or "excessively rare" as there are few examples of both.

Bottom line, for provincials, not only is it not useful to make a rarity scale in a book such as Sear GIC, but it is probably not easy to make a rarity scale in any book, yet.

[David M3]

You have all been so helpfull to me and I'm sure others can lean a little something from this thread. I think it will be a difficult road to follow no matter where I start. But Thank you all for the help I have used some of it already and found it very usefull. Again thank you all.