First off, I'm assuming you are talking about the
provincial bronze series...
Well, just to warn you, if you are thinking of specializing, expect to shell out the big bucks for
quality references on these coins. There simply aren't any
good comprehensive english language references for these coins (although there are some decent/obscure english texts). Currently I'm working on an english language
catalog that has major updates over all other known references (right now I'm about 80% done independently verifying the coins in
Martin's
catalog). So far I've got somewhere between 2 and 3 dozen
new coins that haven't been included in any prior reference to my knowledge (this may change if
SNG Slovenia is ever completed). Here is my list of references and comments:
1-
Pick /
AMNG. This 100 year old
catalog is decent and it forms the backbone of most
contemporary catalogs on
Viminacium coins. That said it is difficult to get a copy of and it is very expensive (several hundred USD typicaly) not to mention it is entirely in
German (and not very user freindly compared to other
german texts) and the plates are
poor IMHO. If you are a completionist, this text is
fine, but you don't need it at all thanks to ...
2-
Martin. I forget the exact name but it roughly translates from
German as "The
Provincial coins of
Moesia Superior and
Dacia". Not only does
Martin's text (published in the early 1990's) have the most
complete and scholarly
catalog, but it is also the most user friendly too. If you were only going to buy one book on
Viminacium's coins,
Martin would be your one book (for now anyhow). The down
side is two fold. First it is entirely in
German (although an english speaker can easily figure out the listings without knowing a lick of
german). Second it is becoming hard to find and it is expensive ($150 to $175 usd or so). The
German publisher
still has some copies available for sale. Another less scrupulous method of obtaining
Martin's
catalog would be to purchase one of the pirated versions off
ebay (it is a book written by another guy from
Serbia, but he 100% plagarized
Martin's
catalog). For anyone who buys the original
Martin text, the essays on the coins make for a
good read as well. I've translated them all by hand and would be willing to share. Another nice thing about
Martin is that he
cross references each coin listed to
Pick's cite and also to various museums or
collections that house the given coin. For now this book is the
Viminacium equivalent of
RIC.
3-Boric-Brescovic. This is probably my third favorite text. This book has a few articles written in
part in english, and it has great plates. The downside is that the author was unaware of several variants in the
collection, so the listings in the
catalog aren't always accurate (you have to go to the plates to figure out if your coin was realy published here or not). Additionaly, the
catalog is a
bit clunky to use. All in all, I love this book, but its not as usefull as either Jekov or
Martin.
Good luck finding this book. I've only seen this book sold at a rate of about 1 or 2
per year. For those who are realy obsesive like myself, there is a follow up article written by the author in the late 1980's. That article is about 90 pages long and written entirely in Serbian. I'm
still working to translate it, but it adds a several
new coins to the
collection published in the book. The
price of this book varies. I've seen them go for over 100$ and for less then 20. It is highly prized by collectors though.
4-Jekov/Hristov is probably the easiest to find and one of the cheapest texts to buy. You can find it on online as we speak for around 25 bucks. It is written entirely in
Bulgarian but like
Martin, the
catalog is user friendly enough to figure out without knowning how to read it. There are some minor errors though and the
binding doesn't hold up well over repeated use (I actualy make copies of all my books and then put the copies in a
binder for my study use). If
Martin is the
Viminacium equivalent of
RIC then Jekov is the
Viminacium equivalent of
Van Meter. Its a great buy at a great value. I haven't gotten around to translating this book because I can't find a
good working
Bulgarian dictionary. One final bonus for Jekov is that it
cross references each coin's citation to
Moushmov and
Boric-Brescovic.
5-
Varbanov Vol 1. Frankly, I dislike
Varbanov 1 alot. The only reason to use it is because virtualy every
auction house is too lazy to obtain a better reference (
Martin) for these coins. I've found over 60 separate errors in
Varbanov's
Viminacium text. Another problem is that it is missing ALOT of material too. As expensive as this text is, you would be better off
buying the comparably priced
Boric-Brescovic or
Martin. The plus
side? Its easy to find and its in english.
6-SNG
Germany. This is a tougher text to find and its sorta pricey (80 to 100 bucks) for as small as it is. There isn't alot of material and there aren't any realy special variants listed. Its nice to have for the occasional
auction that only provides this as a cite, but the organization is somewhat out of date and clunky.
7-
SNG Hungary (I think this is what Barry meant instead of Bulgaria) - This is probably the second best SNG volume on these coins. Its in english! It has alot of material and some interesting new specimens. The plates are gorgeous too. Besides the
catalog though there is no extra content (typical of the SNGs). This text borders on the obscenely
rare and you'll have to shell out 150 to 200 bucks in all likelihood to get this book. At that
price you'd be better off getting
Martin or
SNG Slovenia.
8-
SNG Slovenia pt 1. The downside is that this
collection isn't
complete yet and they haven't published volume 2. It sells for around 200 bucks plus and it is becoming quite hard to find aside from the publisher. I don't have a copy of this text yet myself, but it is my understanding that the coins in this SNG are already listed in
Martin because it covers a private
collection that
Martin studied when he wrote
his catalog.
9-
Moushmov. Its online at
wildwinds and it is free. It is also about as
good a reference as
Varbanov (with slightly fewer errors, but far fewer coins). For a free
catalog of these coins you are better off doing a
search on
www.coinarchives.com or on
www.tantaluscoins.comI
hope that helped! The moral of the story is: buy yourself Jekov &
Martin and you'll be
fine until you can buy my book!
Cheers!
Scott S.
