Germanic Coinage Literature?

@chir, as you readily acknowledge the history of German in the middle ages is fractured, well so is the literature. You can get the Krause book which covers all of Germany in the 1500s. Prior to the 16th Century, you are going to need to build your library region by region and city state by city state. If you know of the correct city state for the majority of your coins, we can help by specifying which refs might be most useful. For coins that you have no idea at all, please post them in separate threads and we can try to help out with an identification.

For most of the more difficult to identify German/Austrian/Swiss/etc. coinage prior to the 17th c. I rely on auction catalogues (Verkaufskataloge) and photographed collections (Sammlungen)

There is a lot of research involved. I usually start with Künker sale catalogues as they tend to be well documented and photographed, also Stephen Album, Mozelt Numismatik, etc.

Samoth offers up an excellent starting point, but it's a highly specialized area of collecting, and what material exists is going to reflect that; thanks for letting me know about Mehner for Meißner Groschen!

I would love to have something like a Spinks book for pre-17th c. German coinage but it would be many, many volumes and probably need a truck to deliver it, as well as needing a very large amount of shelf space and sturdy shelving, given the vast amount of coins struck and the equally vast amount of states, bishoprics, kingdoms, margraviates, duchies, etc. that struck said coins.

I can't say I'm surprised by the replies, clearly this is an area of collecting not for the faint of heart! I appreciate all the tips, I'll start looking into these references.