Curtis -- Exactly what information we needed from
BMC. Thank you!
Marjan, meet
Curtis Clay, who is a distinguished
numismatist and quite a nice fellow. And he's very tall, grin. When
Curtis provides input, pay close attention -- you are guaranteed to learn something.
Decapolis is a loose term for a cluster of ten cities in ancient Judea and in Southern
Syria. They were so named by Pliny the Elder.
Philadelphia is one of those. You may know that city for it's modern name -- it is Amman, capital of Jordan! All of these but one were east of the Jordan river. The other cities were
Gerasa, Scythopolis,
Hippos,
Gadara,
Pella, Dion, Canatha, Raphana, and finally
Damascus. (source
wikipedia)
Spijkerman was a scholar who wrote a nice book on coinage from this
area, but he expanded the list to 18 cities to cover the region of
Arabia as well.
Regarding other sources for
Roman coins... Certainly if you are a beginning collector, then get the
Wayne Sayles volume for Roman imperial coins. He will address many things that a beginning collector needs to get grounded on first.
When it
comes to catalogs... I presume when you say "
republican" that you mean
republican silver coinage? If so, the
Roman Silver Coins is probably your best bet. It is a set of books actually, (I think five?) and each volume covers a specific time period. I don't collect many silver coins, so I don't have any of these.
I purchased Roman Imperial Coins in my first year collecting. It is a set of books with each volume covering imperial coinage for a set of emperors. It isn't
cheap but is generally worth it. If you have a specific interest, say, in
Hadrian, then you would only need Volume 2. You can buy them as a set (cheaper) or individually. The total set is over a thousand dollars, I think. Abbreviated by many people as
RIC. There are some issues with the later volumes, which are seriously due for an update because so many coins have come to market over the past 10 years from the Balkans and Middle East (in particular,
rarity ratings in the later volumes are questionable, though
still reasonable for comparative purposes).
David Sears has a set of three books, Vols 1, 2, 3 of
Roman Coins and their Values.
Good stuff, I hear, but I don't personally own them. If I need pricing guidance, I use
www.coinarchives.com or
www.wildwinds.com or online catalogs or other collectors I trust. Abbreviated RCV.
I've heard
good things about a book specifically on late Roman bronze coins by (don't remember this accurately, I'm sure) by Falz (something, at least the name begins this way) -- I don't own it (obviously) but I'm sure someone in Books and References can
help you out on this one. I don't think it is very expensive either, and very helpful if you begin by cleaning coins, most of which will be late Roman bronzes.
Personally, a set of books that are more recent that
RIC, and thus more accurate, is Coins of the
Roman Empire in the British Museum, 6 Volumes by H.
Mattingly. It is about $750. I am currently saving for those volumes and will probably order them next month. They are abbreviated
BMCRE (
BMC is the similar series, much older, of
Greek coins in the British Museum).
When people way to buy the book first, believe them. It dramatically increases your knowledge and your enjoyment of this hobby. It can, unfortunately, be damned expensive!
Ok, I'm running out of steam here, and I'm sure other people can offer their advice -- you might consider posting a query for advice in the Book and References section. I'd also suggest browsing many of the threads in that discussion group because there is
good information there.
Moneta is a database program for storing info on your
collection. It can also be used to assist in
attribution because it stores a lot of information that you can
search upon (names of
provincial cities, obv and rev legends on both
provincial and imperial coinage, etc.). I own it and use it.
Do not underestimate the value of online resources such as
coinarchives and
wildwinds. Both are very helpful.
There are many, many, MANY books on
ancient coins. Some of them are very specific, some are general. My advice, such as it is, is to stick to the general books for now. Oh, yes, and many of them were published in other languages.
AMNG is a classic reference for
provincials in the Balkan region -- it is in
German. Recuil General covers
provincials in
Asia Minor -- in
French.
Varbanov has editions in both
Bulgarian and English.
Just for fun, the references I use most frequently are these:
Roman Provincial Coins,
vol 1 and 2,
Butcher's Coinage of
Roman Syria,
Sear's
Greek Imperial Coins, Roman Imperial Coins (
RIC),
BMC Galatia,
Spijkerman's Coins of the
Decapolis and
Provincial Arabia, Prier's Syro-Phoenician Tetradrachms,
Varbanov English editions
Vol 1 and 2 (
Vol 3 on order),
wildwinds.com,
coinarchives.com, ISENGRIM (a database of coins catalogued in many
standard references for
Asia Minor), and (perhaps most importantly) the gentle, patient, and deeply experienced people who participate in these discussions via
FORVM.
Mark
