Ric Numbers

If I could add my two denarii ... Reading and Dating Roman Imperial Coins by Klawans has been a invaluble source. I picked up my used copy for $10.00.

I have the three new volumes of Sear Roman Coins and Their Values. I also have the older silver volumes.
Kinda of pricy but certainly nothing like the RIC volumes. I understand a 4th is in the works.

I have had a look at the RIC volumes and they definately are for the seasoned collector as there are very few pictures. I use WildWinds, Dirty Old Coins and Vcoins to do most of my research.

Considering they don't even have name types (AE2, AE3, AE4) for late empire coins my guess on detailed mint records would be difficult, if impossible, to find. Maybe someday.

Helvetica's tables are great in covering the areas that they cover and they go way beyond RIC. If I take Tacitus, for example, his coinage is covered in RIC V Pt. 1. It should be noted at this point that this is likely the worst volume of RIC that there is. Dane has taken RIC and added to it from other sources, such as LaVenera (a set of books documenting the LaVenera hoard, written by Dr. S. Estiot), which until recently provided much better coverage and more up to date research than RIC. This has since been superseded by "BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE, Catalogue des Monnaies de l'Empire Romain T 12,1 : Aurélien, Tacite, Florien", also by S. Estiot and Dane has included much (if not all) on this information into the spreadsheet. This book alone would cost Euro 180.00. RIC V is awful and has many errors. I wouldn't recommend RIC V to anyone other than as a general overview. I won RIC V but also have the La Venera volumes and the BN volume above and would recommend the Estiot books to anyone wanting to specialise on the emperors that they cover but they are costly. Danes sheets are brilliant and I use them regularly and for simply finding references they are ideal.

By the way Wildwinds is now managed by Dane, of the Helvetica lists, after the passing away of Dave Surber who created Wildwinds.

The earlier RIC volumes (I - IV) are OK but the equivalent BMCRE books are better and more up to date and I would recommend BMCRE over RIC for these. One exception would be the new RIC II Pt. 1, which is the newest and most up to date RIC volume. For someone focussed on silver coins then the RSC volumes are great handbooks for references. There are equivalent Paris collection books for this period but I still prefer BMCRE.

The Sear books are overview and very high level and cannot easily be used for reference purposes as too many coins are not covered.

An interesting, new book is ERIC II, which is a handbook that has been written by Rasiel Suarez (of dirtyoldcoins) with the voluntary assistance of a small army of volunteer collectors. He has attempted to create a handbook that takes RIC, BMCRE, RSC and other sales sources and lump them into a a single volume to allow a reference to be found. It has been a huge undertaking and the result is a huge book weighing in at 9.2 lbs and is 11.2 x 8.8 x 2.5 inches in size. He has illustrated as many obverse and reverse types and possible but not individual coins by which I mean that they are general coins of the bust type / reverse types. Like RSC it doesn't attempt to to cover things like chronology etc. so it depends what sort of information you want from your reference books.

If you want to really specialise then there are some books out there that go all the way down to documenting a single mint but this is not the case for all the mints for all the time periods. One such example would be the Bastien series of books covering the output of Lugdunum.

I could go on and on and on here. If I can provide any more information on these and other references then I will be willing to go into more detail.

Regards,
Martin

Thanks sel_91l. That's the direction I went. My collection is relatively small at 300 Roman Imperial and another 300 or so Medieval. I have seen some of the other members coins and WOW!

Actually, there two other major works on Roman coins:

'Corpus Nummorum Romanorum', started by Banti and Simonetti, which attempts to photograph EVERY major Roman coin type, of which they are perhaps are about 15,000. The text is in Italian and English. Needless to say, this is a work in progress. I went to the National Library in Canberra and they didn't have a copy. The most complete copies that I know of of this work are in the State Library of Western Australia, in Perth, and with a major coin dealer in Sydney.

The other is the
'British Museum Catalogue', which I think may be of roughly the same size as RIC. Sear refers to the BMC often.

The 'Dumbarton Oaks Catalogue' is a good reference for Byzantine coins. This is is an auction catalogue.

Meldercat: see if you can get a copy of
'Coins of Medieval Europe' by Philip Grierson, publ. Seaby, 1991, ISBN 1 85264 058 8. It won't be cheap, but it will be worth it for your interests. It is one of the most scholarly researched books on the subject of European medieval coins that I have come across. Sap also has copy of this book.

I also have full sets of RIC and BMC(RE) as well as the RSC set. The BMCRE series stops at Pupienus so post that your best source is going to be RIC as a general guide. I generally find BMCRE to be better detailed than RIC but will pull out both RIC and BMCRE for cross referencing when attributing.
They are expensive books but are well worth the investment in the long run. I don't think that any online resource is going to provide the coverage that you can get with them.

There are some online resources that I also find invaluable:-

http://www.acsearch.info/ - which is a database of coins sold through many major auction houses

http://www.romanatic.com/ - which is starting with RIC I and RIC II and attempting to provide as many examples as is possible in an online databse.

For those interested in Midieval / Modern coinage there is an equivalent to acsearch - http://www.mcsearch.info/

Regards,
Martin

Thanks to sel_69l for for the info on the Medieval book. Soon we won't have to worry about the cost of RIC, BMC, Sear, etc. as our community of Ancient coin collectors seem to be heading to a complete on-line resource. It's becoming rare not to find at least one example of a coin type some where on the web. There should be a central location for the non-web savvy.

I provide basic research and attribution information (free of course) at Julio-Claudian Roman Imperial Coins - An Introduction for beginning collectors (coinage of the first century of the Roman Empire).

James