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Author Topic: Antiquarian Books with Line Drawn Images of Greek Coins  (Read 412 times)

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Offline OldMoney

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Antiquarian Books with Line Drawn Images of Greek Coins
« on: February 22, 2023, 09:15:59 am »
I am looking for any downloadable Antiquarian books with line-drawn images of Greek coins.

I searched through this site without success (did I miss anything?) and also viewed the FORVM
Library of Ancient Coinage, but apart from a couple I already have there is little to choose from.

Can anyone recommend some additional titles, I expect that would be available on archive.org
or similar. Language is not so important, but the more profusely illustrated the better (IMHO).

- Walter
Coins of Ephesus
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Offline Curtis JJ

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Re: Antiquarian Books with Line Drawn Images of Greek Coins
« Reply #1 on: February 22, 2023, 09:37:37 am »
I'm a fan of Leon Dardel in particular, so I will edit in some more, but the one below is one of my favorites. Are you looking for public domain stuff that can be used in publication?

Imhoof-Blumer, Friedrich (catalog) & Léon Dardel (ill.). 1871. Choix de Monnaies Grecques du Cabinet de F. Imhoof-Blumer. Winterthur [s.n.; Kunstverein?].
6 pp. + 9 plates (268 coins ill.). Large folio (42 x 31 cm). First edition. (Rare.)
Reprinted 1883, Paris/Leipzig: Rollin et Feuardent/Koehler. [Clain-Stefanelli 1926* (2nd ed.); Daehn 2062 (2nd ed.)]

Low quality B&W scan on Google books [LINK]
Better quality color scan, but with the usual foxing/spotting (not as good as a hard copy, but pretty good): https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb10633906

Other copies are online, mostly from German-speaking library sites, I think.
Or, the 1883 is just as good, but there is another Imhoof-Blumer title that year that's even better. I just happened to already have this handy.

(Of course, there are more recent publications with black & white, such as Richard J Plant's books, or Owl, Ltd./Barton & McKenna's 1980 auction catalog of "The Aurelia Collection" with inline illustrations in addition to standard photo plates.)
“Collect the collectors…” John W Adams’ advice to J Orosz (Asylum 38, 2: p51)

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Offline mauseus

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Re: Antiquarian Books with Line Drawn Images of Greek Coins
« Reply #2 on: February 22, 2023, 09:43:39 am »
Hi,

Early volumes of BMC Greek have line drawings, also early Numismatic Chronicle volumes. Are you after anything particular, I'm curious.

Regards,

Mauseus

Offline Curtis JJ

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Re: Antiquarian Books with Line Drawn Images of Greek Coins
« Reply #3 on: February 22, 2023, 09:52:06 am »
Also, most or all of these journals published line drawings through the end of the 19th century and sometimes into the early 20th.
These are archives, so you can usually page through the issues, and either jump to the back or occasionally the drawings are inline:

RIN = Revista Italiana Numismatica, 1888-1979: http://www.socnumit.org/page_22.html

RN - Revue Numismatique, Leon Dardel did many of these, you can find the really old ones (mid-late 19th cent) on Google Books, Hathitrust, and some here from Sorbonne (also linked on Numiswiki):  http://bibnum.enc.sorbonne.fr/items/browse?collection=8

MBNG = Mitteilungen der Bayerischen Numismatischen Gesellschaft, you can find the PDFs on Google, e.g, vols 15-20 (1890s), maybe Hathi too: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Mitteilungen_der_Bayerischen_numismatisc/JrBYAAAAMAAJ?hl=en
For MBNG index: https://www.coingallery.de/zeitschriften/mbng_1.htm

RBN = Revue Belge de Numismatique et de Sigillographie, archived 1842-2014 at: http://www.numisbel.be/inhoudstafel.htm
“Collect the collectors…” John W Adams’ advice to J Orosz (Asylum 38, 2: p51)

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Offline mauseus

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Re: Antiquarian Books with Line Drawn Images of Greek Coins
« Reply #4 on: February 22, 2023, 10:18:20 am »
Hi,

I would add a caveat in using such illustrations in that the accuracy of the engraver and the verity of the reproduction can vary an awful lot. A range between extreme accuracy and details reproduced through to cartoon like and extremely dubious features represented

Regards,

Mauseus

Online Molinari

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Re: Antiquarian Books with Line Drawn Images of Greek Coins
« Reply #5 on: February 22, 2023, 01:16:24 pm »
A good one I came across just recently that I had never heard of. There are many others. 


https://books.google.com/books?id=S21LAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

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Re: Antiquarian Books with Line Drawn Images of Greek Coins
« Reply #6 on: February 22, 2023, 04:51:14 pm »
This one has some of the best I’ve ever seen:

Offline Curtis JJ

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Re: Antiquarian Books with Line Drawn Images of Greek Coins
« Reply #7 on: February 22, 2023, 05:56:37 pm »
A good one I came across just recently that I had never heard of. There are many others. 
https://books.google.com/books?id=S21LAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Nick: Wow, that's a cool one! Great plates in there. It's also a great example of what Mauseus was saying:

I would add a caveat in using such illustrations in that the accuracy of the engraver and the verity of the reproduction can vary an awful lot. A range between extreme accuracy and details reproduced through to cartoon like and extremely dubious features represented.

I think it's probably also worth distinguishing between illustrations meant to (1) accurately represent a particular specimen, (2) represent an idealized version of the type, and (3) simply aid the reader in interpreting difficult features and legends. (I wonder if maybe Nick's example above, the Sicilian coins, are a fourth category -- artistic representations? -- or more of the third type.)



“PERFECT FAC-SIMILES”!

Another favorite 19th cent. engraver of mine is Henry A. Ogg. In the attachment/excerpt below, he still aimed at a realistic depiction. As Akerman wrote, the illustrations are “made from the actual coins, and are confidently presented as perfect fac-similes.”

John Yonge Akerman. 1834. A Descriptive Catalogue of Rare and Unedited Roman Coins – From the Earliest Period of Roman Coinage, to the Extinction of the Empire Under Constantinus Paleologos · Volume 1 . London: Wilson. (Available online: https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Descriptive_Catalogue_of_Rare_and_Uned/T0dRAAAAcAAJ?gbpv=0)

[ ATTACHMENT 1]

Another “realistic” or “facsimile” example, Leon Dardel from my copy of the 1871 Imhoof-Blumer catalog mentioned in my first comment (if you compare to the same coins' museum photos today, they're remarkably accurate):

(very expandable/click to zoom)




IDEALIZED BUT REALISTIC.:

Here is my one coin that I suspect was one of the models for Leon Dardel's illustrations 11 & 12 on pl. LXIV of Sabatier’s (1862) Description générale des monnaies byzantines frappées sous les empereurs d'Orient. (Available online, lower quality: https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/21hljz-ggKQC?hl=en&gbpv=1.)

[ATTACHMENT 2]

As you can see, there are two reverses, for which he tried to accurately render his two models. (He believed -- mistakenly, I think -- that two different rev. types existed. I suspect my coin was the right reverse, No. 12, copied from de Saulcy’s 1842 RN article [LINK], though I think he also handled the actual coin, since he blended some its detailed features into the obverse drawing too. It's from the Goodacre Collection; unfortunately, his 1931 statement re: its publication history was a bit vague.)

For the obverse, Dardel merged features of two specimens (mine, I believe, plus the specimen that was later DOC IV, XXXIV 56.1 [LINK] = Hendy 1969 34.1 [LINK] = Peirce collection = Prince Karl Egon II of Furtstenberg Coll., Cahn 75, lot 1759 [LINK]).



HIGHLIGHTING FEATURES TO AID IN IDENTIFYING COINS & RECOGNIZING TYPES.

Last attachment is a much more recent (1979) line-drawn illustration – for which Richard Plant’s books are well-known. In this case, the reverse of my coin (ex-Plant Collection) shows enough common characteristics with the reverse of his type 1881 illustration that I'm be reasonably confident it was the model. (There are others out there, e.g., this Antoninus Alexandrian Drachm from CNG was clearly a model for his 1979 book: [LINK].)

I just added this one to my Forum Gallery: https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=180714



The obverse doesn’t look like any actual specimen of this type, though. The obverse die(s) were too large for the flans (which were misshapen), so I’ve never seen one fully centered with a complete legend. (Not to the extent of Plant’s illustration!)

The “unrealistic” quality can be seen as a flaw or the advantage to that style of illustration. You’d never find one single coin to illustrate the full legend. Even if they're less faithful (or artistic), they do well at emphasizing the important points required for identification.
“Collect the collectors…” John W Adams’ advice to J Orosz (Asylum 38, 2: p51)

Galleries https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/index.php?cat=27154

Offline OldMoney

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Re: Antiquarian Books with Line Drawn Images of Greek Coins
« Reply #8 on: February 23, 2023, 11:51:11 am »
Hi,
Early volumes of BMC Greek have line drawings, also early Numismatic Chronicle volumes. Are you after anything particular, I'm curious.
Regards,

Mauseus

Thanks Mauseus,
I am broadly interested in anything from Ephesus, but I like to illustrate my occasional
article with nice images and those earlier line-drawings are excellent for that purpose.

- Walter
Coins of Ephesus
https://groups.yahoo.com/group/ephesuscoins
Walter Holt's Old Money - Ancient Coins
https://www.oldmoney.com.au
Sydney, Australia

Offline Curtis JJ

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Re: Antiquarian Books with Line Drawn Images of Greek Coins
« Reply #9 on: February 23, 2023, 04:35:10 pm »
Oh, I forgot this great article by Silvia Hurter! One more article for anyone interested in the topic... Sadly, nothing related to Ephesus, which is what Walter's looking for.

But it includes fascinating provenance research & comparisons between current photographs and very old line-drawings of the same coins (published 1781-1791). All Sicily, Segesta types.

Hurter, Silvia (2008) “Torremuzza’s SEGESTANORVM,” American Journal of Numismatics Vol. 20: pp. 113-117, Pl. 37-40. 
Available online: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43580307
Or, the entire AJN 20 from Archive.org, but plates aren't as good: https://archive.org/details/AJNSecond2008Vols20to20

“Collect the collectors…” John W Adams’ advice to J Orosz (Asylum 38, 2: p51)

Galleries https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/index.php?cat=27154

Offline OldMoney

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Re: Antiquarian Books with Line Drawn Images of Greek Coins
« Reply #10 on: February 23, 2023, 05:40:15 pm »
Thanks also to Curtis JJ and Molinari.

Additional note:
One extraordinary thing I have noticed about several of these older books is that
the plates have been redacted in various ways, and some have been made blurry
and entirely unreadable and unusable (see attached - note that the rest of the
webpage, and the book itself, is clear and in focus, but the plate is blurry
).

What is going on with these old books and their plates? Very strange!

- Walter
Coins of Ephesus
https://groups.yahoo.com/group/ephesuscoins
Walter Holt's Old Money - Ancient Coins
https://www.oldmoney.com.au
Sydney, Australia

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Re: Antiquarian Books with Line Drawn Images of Greek Coins
« Reply #11 on: February 23, 2023, 06:15:12 pm »
Thanks also to Curtis JJ and Molinari.

Additional note:
One extraordinary thing I have noticed about several of these older books is that
the plates have been redacted in various ways, and some have been made blurry
and entirely unreadable and unusable (see attached - note that the rest of the
webpage, and the book itself, is clear and in focus, but the plate is blurry
).

What is going on with these old books and their plates? Very strange!

- Walter
I come across lots of unusable online books like this, and yet I never learn my lesson and download and save the good file. Sometimes the problem is that the librarian scanning the book doesn’t unfold the fold-out plates!  Other times the scan is done in a very low DPI.  The one you just posted is curious.  I can’t explain that.

 

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