Yesterday I also received my copy of another wonderful new book, the single volume, hardback book edition of the
RBW Collection of
Roman Republican Coins. As the NAC61 and NAC63
auction catalogues (that this book is partly based on) were written by Roberto
Russo (1945-2012), Roberto is credited as the principal author, together with Alberto de Falco; the book represents a comprehensive revision with a great deal of extra material and many extra coins as compared with NAC61/63, with extra historical notes by David
Vagi, and extra numismatic notes throughout by myself, and Richard
Witschonke.
I show a variety of pictures of the book below, but I want to highlight the substantial differences between this and the catalogues that it was based on.
- It includes all the
gold coins of the
RBW collection which were not included in NAC61/63, as well as some other coin
types that
had been omitted from the original sales. Some of the sample pictures below illustrate gold, e.g. a
portrait aureus of
Brutus and the famed first
Roman portrait gold of Flamininus, both coins of great
rarity, and that were not in NAC61/63, as well as many dozen more
rare gold
types- The book has been rearranged in strict
Crawford order (unlike the sale catalogues) and thus will be a useful and relatively inexpensive alternative to
buying Crawford's
RRC, and in fact illustrates far more coin
types than
Crawford- The book is in
SNG format, with the pictures on pages facing the cataloguing and text. However unlike
SNG volumes, it is in full colour, and as such it may be the first comprehensive
catalogue presented in this format. You can see in the example below, the entire Sickle series,
Crawford 26, arranged on a single page with silver, struck bronze and
aes grave. Such a picture of an entire large
Crawford series, in all metals, has never been seen before, and this book is full of such pages.
- Every effort has been made to arrange pictures for clarity, for example, it avoids breaking
Crawford series across two pages, unless the series is too long for one page, and enlargements are chosen to illustrate varieties, in the pictures below you will see that the varieties of Scarpus
denarii, are enlarged for comparison; this selective enlargement has been used throughout the book to illustrate difficult series.
- The coin descriptions have been
corrected throughout; it's not well known that hastily assembled
auction catalogues often have many errors; especial care has been taken to eliminate these errors; overall there are perhaps some hundreds of corrections relative to NAC61/63
- The notes written by Roberto
Russo and RBW have been kept throughout the book, but in addition, there are many historical descriptions written by David
Vagi (most of which were not in NAC61/63) as well as numismatic notes added by Andrew McCabe and by Richard
Witschonke (none of which were in NAC61/63). Some of these numismatic notes comment on special coin
types. Other notes comment on research
work that is underway or will be done in future, as an example, the note on the page of Luceria bronzes that comments on future
work.
- prices realised as well as estimates are shown for all coins;
rarity is also indicated for
scarce or
rare coins. As such it provides a much better indication of actual prices and
rarities than Sear's handbook
I expect this book to become a
standard reference in the future. As with
Essays Russo which I discussed in an earlier note, pending arrangements for distribution (especially in the US) the book is already available direct from NAC,
Milan.
Price USD $150 +p&p, or equivalent in other currencies, payable by Paypal or bank transfer. To order please contact NAC
Milan Tatiania Granata, tatianagranata@arsclassicacoins.com
Andrew