Looking Recommendations For Books For Italian Coinage

@bacc, those are great recommendations from @tdz. I would bring up Biaggi too as that is generally my go-to for all the older Italian stuff. For completeness, you could also look at CNI.

http://goccf.com/t/307749

I also use CNI, which is available online, making it the most economical choice.

A great plus is that it lists many small variants of each type, whereas the catalog part of MEC contains only the (extensive) collection at Cambridge, and can have some gaps (though they cover in the text important types that are not in their collection). Later scholars and auction houses have used this feature in CNI as a sort of proxy for the mintage/scarcity (i.e., assuming it should correlate with number of dies).

Downside (in addition to it being in Italian) is that it doesn't give much background/contextual information that you are seeking, other than when each place was granted minting rights (and MEC points out that in some cases this was just a re-affirmation of earlier minting rights).

Good luck. It's a challenge.

Thanks again, that's very helpful.

I downloaded the CNI, all 20 volumes, to peruse, but as you state its in Italian and like a challenge, which is why I mostly collect Mughal or Princley states rupees. However I've always liked Italian coins for their style, both pre ww2 Kingdom coins and Roman. Its the bit in the middle I'm not well versed in and wanted to read up on it.

I like numismatic books nearly as much as I like coins.

Yes, I've had a look around and can get it for around £50 (from a UK bookdealer) which is fine. Not from the US alas as the postage would double the cost.

In our house only my wife has Amazon prime so I'll have to pass on that option