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New Book: A Handbook of Late Roman Bronze Coin Types, 324 - 395, Spink.

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SC:
Heads up to forum members.

My long term book project is finally coming to fruition. Spink has just finished typesetting "A Handbook of Late Roman Bronze Coin Types, 324 - 395".  It will soon go to printing in Malta.

It currently has a publication date of June 1 for UK booksellers and August 2 in North America.  I am not sure if that is a true difference or not as the UK date was recently moved up from August to June.

The book is hardcover, octavo-sized (216mm x 138mm), full colour, and approx. 346 pages.

The standard descriptive blurb is as follows:

Extensively illustrated, each entry includes details on dates, mints, personalities, weight standard, important variations, and the history and meaning of the legend and design. Detailed information about the late Roman bronze coinage system. Extensive introductory notes in Chapter One discuss the life-cycle of late Roman bronze coins (manufacture, circulation, loss and the effects of burial) as well as their weight, fineness standards and contemporary value.

The introductory sections of the subsequent chapters, each of which is dedicated to a short time period, cover the history of that period and the metrology (weight, size and metallic composition), overall pattern, and mint and field marks of the coinage of those years. First detailed examination of the coinage of this period by reverse design. By examining late Roman bronze coinage through the study of reverse types, this book provides different insights from those gained through an examination of the coinage by Mint (as found in The Roman Imperial Coinage series) or by emperor (as found in the Roman Coins and their Values series). Many major numismatic works covering this time period are out of date.

This Handbook incorporates the latest numismatic scholarship and includes extensive footnotes and bibliography. The easy to use (indexed and cross-referenced) catalogue entries will be of interest to collectors, cataloguers and researchers. The historical and metrological discussions will appeal to scholars, numismatists and students. A focus on reverse types provides scholars working with hoards or site finds with much greater insight into dates and other aspects of the coinage than simply identifying the emperor.

Publisher: Spink & Son Ltd
ISBN: 9781912667611

It is currently on the website of amazon and all major booksellers.

Shawn

Heliodromus:
Congratulations! That must have been a huge amount of work!

I'm curious about the process of publishing with Spink...

Who foots the up-front costs of publishing - you or Spink ? Do you start making royalties on 1st sale, or only after a certain number have sold ?

What there any choice of format: size, hard/soft cover, any limitations on number of color photos ?

Did you need to get permission to use any photos ? If so, how easy was that ?

DId Spink give you any ballpark expectations for sales volume ?

Ben

SC:
Ben,

Thanks for the comments.

Spink does both types of publishing.  Mine is a standard book project.  I put no money in and get a small cut of after-cost profits.  Not a project I undertook to get rich.  But I know Spink has done some projects where they weren't interested themselves, but the author wanted to pay the costs.  For example, a couple of books by another author several years back on slightly obscure Canadian coinage.

Spink came up with the format (and cover) based on their interests.  This matches the size and hardcover of the Sear books, but unlike them is color interior so it is more like their Coins of England series.

I got permission to use photos from many dealers and auction houses.  I have been working on this project since 2009 and I think some dealers are no longer even active.  Most were happy as long as I gave them credit.  Mine has several hundred images and so the credit is not by photo but I list all sources in the from section. 

No idea of volume.

SC

Heliodromus:
Interesting - thanks, Shawn.

Ben

wolfgang336:
I'll have to get a signed version, Shawn!  ;D

Congratulations on this accomplishment!

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