Byzantine coin books question...

[ewomack]

I'm still relatively new to Byzantine coins, having only started collecting them last summer. After accumulating about a dozen so far, I'd like to learn more. That usually means books. So far, I've read the Sear book, the Sayles book (also known as Ancient Coin Collecting V) and the helpful, but somewhat jumbled, The Beginner's Guide To Identifying Byzantine Coins.

Apart from random Internet searches, the recent numismatic library thread here included pictures of other books on this subject, including Byzantine Coins by Whittier (in "The World of Numismatics" series) and, Byzantine Coins by Grierson. Are these books (which usually sell for between $50 - $100 each) a good next step for learning more about this subject?

Does anyone have any other recommendations for getting deeper into Byzantine coins?

[Nerosmyfavorite68]

The Dunbarton Oaks volumes are available, officially and freely, on pdf.  I don't have the url handy.

There's also Early Byzantine Copper Coins, another e-book on pdf.  Perhaps someone else can help with the official urls.  EBCC is good about showing a lot of rare coins. 

 

[DonnaML]

1 hour ago, Nerosmyfavorite68 said:

The Dunbarton Oaks volumes are available, officially and freely, on pdf.  I don't have the url handy.

There's also Early Byzantine Copper Coins, another e-book on pdf.  Perhaps someone else can help with the official urls.  EBCC is good about showing a lot of rare coins. 

 

Numiswiki is usually a good place to search for the urls of particular numismatic books that are available online.

[Nerosmyfavorite68]

https://www.byzantine-ae.info/

Here's the URL to EBCC.

 

 

 

[sand]

3 hours ago, ewomack said:

I'm still relatively new to Byzantine coins, having only started collecting them last summer. After accumulating about a dozen so far, I'd like to learn more. That usually means books. So far, I've read the Sear book, the Sayles book (also known as Ancient Coin Collecting V) and the helpful, but somewhat jumbled, The Beginner's Guide To Identifying Byzantine Coins.

Apart from random Internet searches, the recent numismatic library thread here included pictures of other books on this subject, including Byzantine Coins by Whittier (in "The World of Numismatics" series) and, Byzantine Coins by Grierson. Are these books (which usually sell for between $50 - $100 each) a good next step for learning more about this subject?

Does anyone have any other recommendations for getting deeper into Byzantine coins?

Byzantine coins, and the Byzantine Empire, are certainly interesting. I've been collecting Byzantine coins, since 2019. I recommend the following Byzantine books, in order of goodness, with the best books at the top, all of which are in my numismatic library. You mentioned that you have Sear and Sayles, which is a good start.

1. Sear "Byzantine Coins And Their Values" : I've used the Sear book many times, because it's a good coin reference.

2. Dumbarton Oaks PDF books : As @Nerosmyfavorite68 mentioned, the Dumbarton Oaks books are available in PDF format, and they are very helpful. You should be able to find them, via Google. I've used the Dumbarton Oaks PDF books many times, because they are a good coin reference, and there is also a lot of interesting reading material in them. There are many sections of the Dumbarton Oaks PDF books, that I haven't gotten around to reading, perhaps because they are in PDF format, and I can't sit on my sofa and read them, unless I print them out. Maybe I'll put them on an old tablet of mine, so I can read them on the sofa. The actual books exist, but they are usually expensive, and there are many volumes.

3. Suarez "ERIC II" : This book covers both the Roman Empire, and the Byzantine Empire. I like it a lot. It has a lot of interesting information, about the Emperors, and their coins. It's big and heavy, but the pages are nice and slick, and it has color photos of coins and other things. The only downside, besides the size and weight of the book, is that it doesn't have as many coin photos, as Sear or Grierson.

4. Grierson "Byzantine Coins" : A very good book, with lots of interesting text, about Byzantine coins.

5. Whitting "Byzantine Coins" : Another very good book, with lots of interesting text, about Byzantine coins. I think this is the book you meant, when you said "Whittier".

6. Sayles "Ancient Coin Collecting V" : I like all of the Sayles books. They are interesting to read.

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If you get more specialized in certain areas of Byzantine coins, then you may want to check out the following books, which are also in my numismatic library.

Lianta "Late Byzantine Coins" : This books has photos and attributions of many late Byzantine coins.

Bendall & Donald "The Later Palaeologan Coinage" : I've used this book a few times, for information about Byzantine coins from 1282 AD to 1453 AD. It has line drawings of coins, rather than photos. It's much easier to find, than Bendall's classic "A Private Collection Of Palaeologan Coins", which I have never been able to acquire.

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There are some interesting Youtube videos, about Byzantine coins. Some collectors may be surprised, that Ilya Zlobin has a nice Youtube video, called "Guide to Ancient Byzantine Coins", in which he shows some beautiful coins of Anastasius I, Justinian I, Constantine V, Leo VI, and so on. He even reviews some Byzantine coin books, at the end of the video. He has a whole series of Youtube videos, about various areas of ancient and medieval coins, which I have found interesting. He used to have an Ebay store, but I don't know if he still does. I've never bought any coins from him. Besides the Zlobin Youtube videos, there are miscellaneous Youtube videos, posted by various other persons, who show off their Byzantine coins.

ACsearch is a most valuable web site, for looking at coins from past auctions.

Edited June 19, 2023 by sand

[DLTcoins]

The two-volume Catalogue of the Imperial Byzantine Coins in the British Museum (1908) by Warwick Wroth and a companion volume, also by Wroth, Catalogue of the Coins of the Vandals, Ostrogoths and Lombards and of the empires of Thessalonica, Nicaea and Trebizond in the British Museum (1911) are pre-copyright and readily available as free pdf downloads at the usual archive sites. Being more than 100 years old, some of the theory may be outdated (the Vandals volume particularly) but all are still quite useful for ID, cataloguing, and general reference.

Edited June 19, 2023 by DLTcoins

[akeady]

I find Grierson's "Byzantine Coins" very good and am reading it at the moment.

https://www.dib.ie/biography/grierson-philip-a9471

The best bit in his biography above is where he went to Spink saying he was prepared to spend £5 on some coins to show students and had no intention of becoming a collector... and within 5 years he had over 7,000 coins 😄

ATB,

Aidan

[Simon]

The best is the DOC series. It has the most info , here are the links to the now free 5 volume set. 

https://www.doaks.org/research/publications/books/catalogue-of-the-byzantine-coins-in-the-dumbarton-oaks-collection-and-in-the-whittemore-collection-1
https://www.doaks.org/research/publications/books/catalogue-of-the-byzantine-coins-in-the-dumbarton-oaks-collection-and-in-the-whittemore-collection-2
https://www.doaks.org/research/publications/books/catalogue-of-the-byzantine-coins-in-the-dumbarton-oaks-collection-and-in-the-whittemore-collection-3
https://www.doaks.org/research/publications/books/catalogue-of-the-byzantine-coins-in-the-dumbarton-oaks-collection-and-in-the-whittemore-collection-4
https://www.doaks.org/research/publications/books/catalogue-of-the-byzantine-coins-in-the-dumbarton

 

Sear  Byzantine coins and their values is the the best way to communicate with other collectors, not free but it is common. 

Grierson, very good all around look of the Byzantine coinage of the time period. 

Then Depenning on your focus, what century , the list gets better from there. 

Best,

 

Simon

 

 

[O-Towner]

As others have pointed out the "Sear Byzantine Coins and their Values" should be high on your list. Just understand that the "and their values" part is out of date and even using the numbers as a comparative value is in many cases way, way off. Some common types are shown with high values and some very rare types are shown with low values. But for basic coin info it's really good.

[TheTrachyEnjoyer]

2 hours ago, Simon said:

The best is the DOC series. It has the most info , here are the links to the now free 5 volume set. 

https://www.doaks.org/research/publications/books/catalogue-of-the-byzantine-coins-in-the-dumbarton-oaks-collection-and-in-the-whittemore-collection-1
https://www.doaks.org/research/publications/books/catalogue-of-the-byzantine-coins-in-the-dumbarton-oaks-collection-and-in-the-whittemore-collection-2
https://www.doaks.org/research/publications/books/catalogue-of-the-byzantine-coins-in-the-dumbarton-oaks-collection-and-in-the-whittemore-collection-3
https://www.doaks.org/research/publications/books/catalogue-of-the-byzantine-coins-in-the-dumbarton-oaks-collection-and-in-the-whittemore-collection-4
https://www.doaks.org/research/publications/books/catalogue-of-the-byzantine-coins-in-the-dumbarton

 

Sear  Byzantine coins and their values is the the best way to communicate with other collectors, not free but it is common. 

Grierson, very good all around look of the Byzantine coinage of the time period. 

Then Depenning on your focus, what century , the list gets better from there. 

Best,

 

Simon

 

 

Start with Dumbarton Oaks. If you find you like earlier imperial, pick up copies of Moneta Imperii Byzantii. If you like later imperial, grab Late Byzantine Coinage. From there you can further branch out. MIB is still the highest quality numismatic work I am aware of. 

[Simon]

Here is a good source of what is available. 

Byzantine - NumisWiki, The Collaborative Numismatics Project (forumancientcoins.com)

The list is very comprehensive. Still SBCV ( Sear Byzantine coins and their Values.)  is the way most of us communicate. 

I paid a small fortune for my first copy of DOC IV, now they are free. Hopefully they will overtake Sear in usage but I think it is too late for that Too many coins in the collections and by dealers are still only identified by SBCV. 

[Marsyas Mike]

14 hours ago, ewomack said:

Byzantine Coins by Whittier (in "The World of Numismatics" series)

I'm a big fan of Whittier's book.  My local public library has it on the shelf, so I've never sprung for a copy of my own, but I'd like to get one some day.  That being said, the Roman Coins from the same series is not as good, I think.  It spends too much time on Julio-Claudians at the expense of everything later, as if the author just got bored soon after Nero's bathetic end.  

Years ago the American Numismatic Assn. issued a series of books "Selections from The Numismatist" and one of these was Ancient & Medieval Coins.  Most of the articles are rather out of date and/or inaccurate (my copy is from 1960, so the articles are older).  However, there is one called "Notes on Common Byzantine Bronze Coins" by John F. Lhotka, Jr. that is just excellent - to this day I use it.  The charts on emperors' regal years, mints, and denominations are very helpful.  

These old ANA anthologies were published by Whitman and seem to always come in dark blue hardback (like the penny folders).  Used book stores usually sell them cheap.  I paid $5 for my copy:

 

[Valentinian]

I have a website, "Introduction to Byzantine Coins":
http://augustuscoins.com/ed/Byz/

The reference works for Byzantine coins are listed with annotations here:
http://augustuscoins.com/ed/Byz/references.html

In short: Sear (be sure to get the second edition) is essential for collectors. 
Whitting, Byzantine Coins, is the most fun and enjoyable.
Grierson, Byzantine Coins, has, by far, the most through discussion. It has over 1400 good B&W photographs, but may be too advanced for a beginner. 

Read the rest of the comments here:
http://augustuscoins.com/ed/Byz/references.html#books

[Qcumbor]

Unless I read too fast the posts above, I didn't see any mention of "Die Münzen des Byzantinischen Reiches" by Andreas Urs Sommer. Although it's in german, I find it easy to use and providing a lot of useful information. At 50 € I find it a good investment for a beginner

Q

[Simon]

@Valentinian website is excellent. The reviews are good and it answers all the questions a beginner may have. ( I really think you should have added Harlan Berks book on coppers as well. I still use it to this day.)

I think we must remember our recommendations are for two types of collectors. The collector who just wants to start collecting coins and then those of us who got hooked and took it much further, looking to add to the knowledge of the time period. 

The basics have been covered, once a collector takes it to a time period then it expands out nicely. As @TheTrachyEnjoyer said MIB for early years. It is one of the newest publications and it will be the most up to date. New Good Books on Byzantine coinage are rarer for different time periods. Lianta I believe would be the winner for Late Byzantine coinage.  Her work is an excellent way to wade through the late coinage years. Julian Bakers new book is excellent, but the focus was not on the empire but the coinage that was available in Greece at the same time, some Byzantine, most not. 

I specialize in the late empire before the fall to the Latins ( 1203), the best work I find in DOC IV, a more up to date catalog was written but it was poorly researched, but the line drawings are excellent for any collector and that is CLBC. I am looking forward to Pagona Papadopoulou work on the time period, she will differ than in the work by Baker, she follows the work of Michael Hendy, Baker seems to be a follower of D.M. Metcalf, they both had very different views on the time period. The conclusions will be very interesting. 

31 minutes ago, Qcumbor said:

Unless I read too fast the posts above, I didn't see any mention of "Die Münzen des Byzantinischen Reiches" by Andreas Urs Sommer. Although it's in german, I find it easy to use and providing a lot of useful information. At 50 € I find it a good investment for a beginner

I agree it is good, but it is based on a collection, it is missing many coins.  It does have a more up to date price guide that Sear. I have a copy and I refer to it often. Google translate makes it much more usable for the non-German speaker. 

Edited June 19, 2023 by Simon

[Valentinian]

1 hour ago, Simon said:

@Valentinian website is excellent. The reviews are good and it answers all the questions a beginner may have. ( I really think you should have added Harlan Berks book on coppers as well. I still use it to this day.)

Okay. I added it to my page:
http://augustuscoins.com/ed/Byz/references.html

They were already discussed on my site, but on a different, more-detailed, page of reference works: 
http://augustuscoins.com/ed/catalogs/Byzantine.html
This repeats most of the first page, but has additional references that are not on that first page because that page is for beginners. 

The more you learn, the more you will appreciate the coins you have and the better prepared you will be to buy more. Numis Forums will help you learn, but books have advantages such as well-selected organization and commentary. Plus, they are books! Books are cheap compared to coins. I strongly recommend getting a least a couple of books that I discuss on my page.