Numismatic and History Discussion Forums > Greek Coins Discussion Forum

What books?

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Flav V:
Hello,

I want to start greek coins and i can obtain beautiful coins but i need a book for progress. Actually i only read the greek and compare between types on internet. My id are corrects but i would like to be faster. There is so many periods and areas... i dont know what book can help me. SNG? but so much volumes.. I saw there is french books but i dont know the names. What is the better for having the most coins in the same book and if possible with prices or rarity.

Curtis JJ:
It depends what you want the books for. I would say forget about using books to find the prices of Greek coins, you won't find anything very satisfactory. If you just want to be able to identify coins, the most useful tools are going to be ancient coin websites: Wildwinds, ACSearch, RPC Online, various others.

For identification purposes for Greek coins, you would really need to build a small library of books. You might try buying one of the more comprehensive SNG series, like SNG von Aulock or SNG Copenhagen (I think you can find reprints of either for under $1,000), but even so there will be many coins that you can't find in there. (And even if you can, you will still have to look them up online to find out the prices for similar examples.)

Other people do things differently, and may use their books in different ways, but here's how it works for me: I've been collecting ancient coin books and old auction catalogs for 25-35 years, so I have maybe a few hundred of each -- a medium size library for an ordinary collector, but small compared to most professional coin dealers. (I don't necessarily have all the most useful books, but I have most of the recognizable beginner books and many specialized volumes.) But even that isn't enough to identify every coin -- or even most coins. If I want to identify a coin (or especially determine the price), I still usually start with the internet. Some people get by fine with zero books (but I don't recommend it).

Don't get me wrong: Ancient coin books are great. I like them as much as the coins. But I would say the books are much better for learning about ancient coins in general, the background and the history behind them, what the different types mean, the history of each mint or kingdom, and so on....

If the coins you're dealing with all come from a certain mint or region -- like Egypt Alexandria, or coins from Thrace. Then you might be able to find a better reference with just a few volumes. (I would say it might be somewhat easier for Roman Imperial or Byzantine Coins. You could try to get by with just ERIC II (by Suarez), and it would cover most coins, and maybe even give you some sense of rarity, but for identifying/selling coins it would still be better to use online sources.)

Victor C:
A good place to start is Greek Coins and Their Values vol 1 and vol 2 by David Sear

Molinari:
How much are you looking to spend?

Flav V:
I actually use those websites... But for example if im in front of a seller, without internet: if the legend dont indicate the king or other, im bot able to identify it. And thats what i want to be able to do. Example with this one:

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=10617942

if i cant search on internet i cant identify it. Is there a quick way to see on book or other the types and how recognyze area? Wildwinds is good but there is so many coins and areas that it is complicate for learning. I saw a book in french with a photo for each coin... Any idea of the name?

between 200 and 1.000

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