What are the BEST books for Roman Coins?

mintluster

Please tell what books I should purchase to assist with my Roman coin collection.
I know they are all expensive, but what books are the best and widely used?

historygeek

I am no expert on Roman coins, but I am pretty sure that everyone uses the David Sear series of catalogue.


Here is a booklist from Scott Semans.

LINK

Here is booklist from Guy Clark

LINK

Aethelred

You want the Sear books, no question about it!

BigAlan

The Sear set is great but the three volumns total about $250+, when Vol III comes out.

The Van meter book The Handbook of roman Imperial Coins is a great starter book, about $35, but it doesn't cover Roman Republic issues.

Jones [u[A Dictionary of Ancient Roman Coins is not really a dictionary of coins as such, but a dictionary of coin related stuff. A really interesting book. I think I paid about $60.

Don't worry, if you really want to spend some serious money on Roman coin books, you can.

Donovan

I also concur, Sear is the best. The new 3 volume milllennium edition is excellent with vol 3 to be released soon. The best one volume on imperial is van meter.

CIVITAS

For Roman Imperial the "best" is without equal, the 10 volume set of Roman Imperial Coinage (RIC).
For Roman Republican the "best" (also without equal) is Roman Republican Coinage by Michael Crawford. (An excellent reference by an interesting individual. I had the pleasure of meeting Michael Crawford on an archaeological excavation last year.)

Of course the former will set you back $900-$1000 as a set, and the latter about $300. But of course those cover EVERYTHING (well, mostly everything) so if you specialize in a certain period or composition, there are cheaper alternatives.

For basic coverage, the Sear books and the Van Meter books already mentioned are very adequate.

If you only like silver coins, go with Roman Silver Coins volumes 1-5. It's based on the old Cohen reference from the mid 1800s. Something else is coming out to replace it eventually though, but I don't recall what.

If you like bronze coinage from the Constantinian era go with Late Roman Bronze Coinage (LRBC) by Carson, Hill and Kent. No values listed, but a rather complete reference for the subject.

mintluster

Thank you all, this is great help for me!!