Questions about AMNG

[Bobicus]

I have outgrown the wildwinds copy of Moushmov on line.  Tonight I was trying to attribute a bronze of a very young Caracalla from MARKIANOPOLIS, Thrace.  

For those of you that don't know, coins of Markianopolis often contain the Legates name as part of the reverse legend, which makes the web searches challenging because neither Sear nor Moushmov pay much attention to them.  Eventually with a lot of work, I determined that the legate must be: Flavius Ulpianus.  What set me over the edge was that Moushmov spelled the reverse legend wrong for the Legate and also that there was no mention whatsoever about dates or any kind of details.  The interesting way the plates correspond to the coin descriptions is also annoying.  It sounds like I'm ungrateful but I'm not, I'm just ready to move on.

My understanding is that AMNG is the more or less official guide to bronzes of Thrace.  If not so, whip me, beat me, make me wear hair shirts, I'm only 6 months into to this and still learning every day.

Now my questions:
1) AMNG is in German, I have a German surname (Schneider = Tailor) but that is about all the German I know.  What are the chances that I could teach myself enough German to read the coin descriptions?  I'm reasonably intellegent, and I am wondering if any of you have had much luck at this.

2) Is AMNG available readily, or is it like RPC I and pretty much impossible to find at less that 900.00?  Money is no big issue but, somewhere between 500.00 and 1000.00 I have to start to think really, really hard if I want the book or not.

3) Am I maybe better off and just waiting and hoping that Varbanov will get around to translating his references into English in the next year?  In reality, since I expect Varbanov will only be 200-300 when he does translate, I will probably pick it up anyway.

If there is something else I should be using for bronzes from Thrace please let me know, though it has to be something I can get access to.  There are no real libraries here in Lakeland, nor in Florida, nor in the Southeast Unitied states that would have the rarer references, nor are any major libraries expected anytime soon.

Thanks for taking a look at this.

Robert

[slokind]

To give you an idea: after finding none under ABEbooks or Bookfinder, I resorted to a general search, and this is the first I came up with:
http://www.mevius.nl/Classicalcoins.htm
Look under Imhoof-Blumer (its editor) at this site.
He lists it for € 430 (that's euros, in case the key stroke didn't work).
I've seen others list it: CNG, Ed Waddell, Malter, just to name three.  I've seen it as low as $400, but I forget where.  It sold just five years ago at about $700.  Should be somewhere in between.  This is a reprint.
Yes, you really ought to be able to teach yourself that much German, and Behrendt Pick, who wrote most of vol. I, is an excellent author to start with.  If you ever took any Latin or Greek you will have no trouble with grammar, and German, as your own name indicates, is kindred to English.  Go to an encyclopedia and read about Grimm's Law; that should turn on a light bulb, to start with.
I'm afraid it will be a long time before it is replaced.  How long will it be before RPC gets through the Severans?  And that's barring wars or depressions.  The one thing you must know about AMNG is that WW I cut it short.  Never mind.  The work is a whole education in itself.
What you discovered about Mushmov, everyone discovers.
Pat Lawrence

[Bobicus]

Thanks so much for the answers.  At around $500.00 I will be taking the plunge tomorrow and getting a copy headed this way.  Now to head over to Amazon and get myself an English-German dictionary so I can start making my lists of words to memorize.  

Thanks for the tip about Grimm's Law, it is an interesting idea. It is amazing what has been studied, and it is humbling to find out how very much is known, compared to how little each of us knows.

Robert

[curtislclay]

    It is a wonderful work, but has two serious defects.
    One, that Pat mentioned, the work is incomplete because stopped by WWI.  Dacia, Upper Moesia, Lower Moesia are complete, but only one of the three planned volumes on Thrace ever appeared, covering Abdera-Anchialos.  
     So you will search in vain in the original work for Serdica, Pautalia, Philippopolis, Hadrianopolis, Mesembria, Deultum, Bizya, Perinthos, Byzantium, though a number of these mints have been treated in monographs continuing AMNG since c. 1965, and others are treated in rare older works.
     Second, there are far too few illustrations in AMNG.  Especially regrettable is the decision to illustrate the rev. only of a great many coins, without the corresponding obverses.  The text tells you a great deal about the obverse dies and their use for different rev. types, different governors, in one case even different mints, but unfortunately almost none of the obverses are illustrated, making it difficult to ascertain how new specimens fit in!
     Varbanov of course excerpts AMNG, plus he adds a lot of new material and of course covers ALL of the Thracian mints, but his work is far less accurate and meticulous than AMNG, and is arranged much less usefully.  So you will want to get his work too when the English translation appears, but it does not replace AMNG.

[esnible]

A useful web page for the legates/governors of Moesia Inferior is http://members.aol.com/AkropolisZ/page8.html

If you join the ANA ($40/year) you can borrow AMNG from their library for double-postage.  http://www.money.org/library/libcat2.html

They don't like to send multi-volume works all at once though, they encourage you to borrow them serially.  It is often worthwhile to pay the $10-$15 to borrow the book for a month and see how useful it proves itself before plunking down $495.