RIC 'The Roman Imperial Coinage', various authors, 10 volumes, various dates.
RCV 'Roman Coins and their values', David R Sear, 1988
RCVM 'Roman Coins and their values, Millennium Edition', David R Sear, Volume I 2000, Volume II 2002, Volume III 2005, Volume IV 2011.
RSC 'Roman Silver Coins', H.A. Seaby and others, 6 volumes, various dates.
GIC 'Greek Imperial Coins and their values', David R Sear, 1982.
The above works are the main sources for the reference numbers given in the Roman section.
RIC is considered to be the 'Bible' of Roman coins although as its name suggests it excludes coins of the Republic. The 10 volumes take up 19 inches of shelf space. The oldest volumes date to 1923 and the most recent (Volume II, part 1) to 2007. The work aims to be a complete listing of every unique Roman coin type existing, although this is an impossible task even in this on-line age. Naturally some of the older volumes are somewhat out of date. RIC tries to list every variation of a type. This becomes a massive task in volume V onwards as coins were marked with letters showing the mint at which they were made as well as the officina (workshop) number that made them.
RCV is a one volume work that lists only generic coin types, without all the variations you would find in RIC. A short history of each emperor is given. This book has been superceded by RCVM, the four (eventually to be five) volume work and most of the references given here (when appropriate) are from the newer work. The same format is followed although, as you would expect, the listings are much more comprehensive. This format is especially useful in Volume IV, which covers the period of RIC VI and VII. Whereas RIC has to group by mint to encompass all the different mint and officina marks, RCVM is able to list by emperor in a chronological order which gives a clearer view of the social and monetary chaos of the period. Volume I of RCVM has a comprehensive section on Republican coinage.
RSC covers silver coins from the Republic to the 'fall'. The first volume covering the Republic is particularly useful as it groups coins by the issuer's family name.
GIC is a useful one volume book covering provincial coinage. Although a large proportion of the issuing territories were 'Greek' in the wider sense, other areas, such as Spain, also struck their own coinage. The listings are in no way comprehensive.
These are the main works used to reference coins here. Sometimes a coin is not listed anywhere. Sometimes a coin is not listed in any of these works, but is described elsewhere, in which case the reference written in full in the 'Reference' field.
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