THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
tration. But, again, the monograph may be of more
than one kind—a treatise devoted to the records of a
country or of a city, or of a particular epoch or reign,
or, finally, of the coins of a given type associated with
a locality or with a group of localities. Dr. Head
describes his very scholarly, admirable, and interesting
Historia JVumorum, 1887, as a "Manual of Greek
Numismatics ;
"" it is a royal 8vo of over 800 pages.
Stevenson's " Dictionary of Roman Coins," 1889, runs
to 928 pages. The present writer's " Coinage of
Europe," 1893, makes 554 pages. If we turn to under-
takings limited to a city, we find the bulk augmenting
in proportion to the narrowness of the scope ; and this
class of numismatic work is of the highest value when
it has had the advantage of local information and
experience. The process, by which accounts of well-
nigh every place in the world known at any time to
have been the source of a coinage, great or small, per-
manent or temporary, have been printed by specialists,
has been earned on within the last half century so
assiduously, that a complete corpus of numismatic
literature, including certain recognised catalogues, such
as the D'Amecourt, Reimmann, Rossi, Robert, Monte-
nuovo, Meyer, Ligny, is a library in itself, and a
large one.
To compile a sort of Index Raisonne" to such a body
of material, with select illustrations, has been, then, the
object of the writer; he has mapped out in outline
the entire field of numismatic activity in ancient and
modern Europe, and has reserved to those who consult
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