I Have A Question On Reference

There is no complete guide to ancients. If there was I would buy it. There are books which cover different areas and eras, and unfortunately there are a number of them. Many of them are rather costly and some are not in print.

Is there some area and era that you are interested in?

Not really. Just trying to learn. And like I said I'm a book in hand kinda guy

I don't think there could ever be a useful guide to all the ancient coins, printed or otherwise, and there certainly isn't one now; there are simply too many, and in some of the more obscure areas, not that much is known (yet, at least).


David Sear's series (in particular, Greek Coins and Their Values) provide what is probably the closest there is to a generalist catalog covering everything... at least, in the areas they cover (basically, the would-be Roman Empire, plus some of the more Hellenistic places to the east).

I think there are books for ancient Chinese coinage, but offhand I can't name any specific ones. Ditto for Parthian, Kushan and Sassanian coins.
For (the rest of) India and Central Asia, good luck. I'd be surprised if there actually are books (as opposed to vague collections of articles) covering any more than a small area and/or period.

The coinage of the (Achaemenid) Persian Empire is well studied, but mostly doesn't neatly fit into the "Greek" areas. I'm not sure if it's in Sear's two volumes.
A few types of ancient coins were made in Indochina and/or even further south; I don't know much about them except that they exist. I assume that they are catalogued somewhere.

...I probably missed some areas - though offhand I can't think of any.
(Oh, right, Persis and Elymais, the post-Achaemenid remnants that weren't quite Hellenistic. I think the Elymais book is van't-Haaff; not sure about Persis. It's possible that they might be in Sear. I probably still missed something.)


TL/DR: there are catalogues for every particular well-studied area (and period), but there might not always be catalogues covering multiple areas/periods, and the parts that aren't particularly well-studied (yet) might not yet have a catalogue either.

echizento:
Yours is the best general ancient coin reference I have come across.

There are of course, other ancient cultures that produced large volumes of coins:
Indian, Chinese, Sassanian and Islamic.

It would be a rare numismatist indeed that could also include a good introductory numismatic reference, to the standard that you have, for all of these cultures as well.

I just want to note that the treatment of 6th century Byzantine dates in @echizento's article is unexpectedly wrong; the regnal years on Justinian I's coins really are the regnal years, not the indictional years - they start with 12, and go up to the expected 37 (I don't recall offhand whether there is a 38).

IIRC, the regnal dates of Tiberius Constantine start with 4, because the official start of his reign was several years earlier than the actual start.
Otherwise, however, the regnal years are the regnal years, and while, IIRC, there are some indictionally-dated Byzantine coins, I don't believe any of them put the indiction in the regnal year spot.

Useful note: the V is a 5, but the thing that looks kind of like a cross between Y and ς is an abbreviation for VI, and means 6.
(Except in denominations, where it's 5, for some reason. Though I think that version has a shorter tail.)

IIRC, in some Indian and Central Asian cases, such an introductory numismatic reference does not exist - there is simply not enough accepted data for one.
(CoinIndia.com tries its best to do what they can for some, though not all, of the Indian series; I'm not aware of any similar project for Central Asia.)

A few of those Indian places ended up listed in @echizento's link, with the expected relative lack of information; note in particular the comment regarding the Paratarajas, at the bottom of page 128.

According to David Sear, Justinian I started to date his coins in year 12 of his reign (538-539). The indication on the coin is 2, going to 25 in regnal year 551/2. In 552/3 regnal year 26, the number on the coins started at 1 ending in regnal 564/65, regnal years 38,39 indicated by 13 and 14 on the coins. It's confusing I know.

If you go through the sticky section here on Books, downloads, and websites You will find titles of many books available. But be ready they are not cheap.

When I first became interested in ancient coins in the mid-1970s, all I had was David Sear's Roman Coins and Their Values (then a single volume only), a 1940 edition of The Lincoln Library of Essential Information, a motley collection of dealer price lists and a high schooler's knowledge of Latin. When I went off to college in the late 70s, I found a magnificent library with a broad selection of titles on ancient and medieval coins. Today, I have a modest collection of physical books and another 2,700+ books and articles devoted to numismatics in .pdf format on my laptop.

The field of ancient coins is vast. The broader the area covered in a single volume, the more superficial the coverage must be. This article lists a few good introductory titles: https://coinweek.com/ancient-coins/...numismatics/

If you have specific interests, I would be happy to recommend additional works.

I have just found this thread in a search for a query on Justinian II.

@echizento I did download the Ancient Coin Reference Guide (https://www.coincommunity.com/ancie...0Guide.pdf), and am glad that I did. It is proving very helpful. It must have taken an extremely long time to correlate all the information and put it into the document, so thank you for taking the time and trouble to make it available to those of is who still have a lot to learn.

Jim