NEW BOOK: IRANIAN NUMISMATIC STUDIES

Faghfoury, Mostafa, ed. Iranian Numismatic Studies. A Volume in Honor of Stephen Album. 2017. Hardbound. Website shipping rates do not apply. (GR, OG, CA, IS, W). (X274) Faghfoury, Mostafa, ed. Iranian Numismatic Studies. A Volume in Honor of Stephen Album. 2017. Hardbound. Approximately 275 pp. (GR, OG, CA, IS, W). (X274) $85

This volume is a festschrift presented in honor of the numismatist, author, and dealer, Stephen Album. The volume contains papers by important contributors on various topics on Iranian-related numismatics, both before and after the Arab invasion of Iran.

Authors (in alphabetical order) and their contributions are: Alexander V. Akopyan, Iranian Copper Coins of 16th-19th Centuries; G.R.F. Assar, An Audience with King Artabanus IV of Parthia: The Numismatic Legacy of the AD 22 Jewish Revolt; Bahram Badiyi, Two Extremely Rare AE Fractions from the Reign of Ardeshir III; Michael Bates, Who Was Named on Abbasid Coins? What Did It Mean?; William Couch, A Brief Review of Three Numismatic Sources of the Ilkhanid Coinage; Roland Dauwe, The Coinage of Simnan Province from Timur to the Qajars; Mostafa Faghfoury, Face-to-Face with Steve Album; Kiarash Gholami and Hamid R.Zohoorian, Sharik ibn al-Harith: A Governor of Istakhr; Stan Goron, The Coinage of Nadir Shah’s India campaign and its aftermath; Lutz Ilisch, The Dirham Hoard from Amul of 1973; Steve Lloyd, The Coinage and History of Ya’qub b. al-Layth; Hodge Mehdi Malek, Sistan during the Umayyad Period: Arab-Sasanian Coinage providing a chronology (AH 64 - 86) and Tabaristan during the ‘Abbasid period: The overlapping coinage of the governors and other officials (AH 144-178); Vladimir Nastich, Seven Exceptional Rarities of the Shahs of Iran; Doug Nicol, A Bibliography of Stephen Album’s Publications; Irakli Paghava, “Civic Coppers”, Profitability and Monetary Regalia: A Case Study of East Georgian Kingdom; Keith Rutter, Darics and Sigloi: Coins of the Achaemenid Kings; Susan Tyler Smith, Pseudo-Sasanian Coinage in the Name of Khusru II; and Tim Wilkes, The Coinage of the Tahirids.

A section of tributes to Steve and comments about him from Professor Jere L. Bacharach (University of Washington), Vladimir Belyaev (the founder of www.zeno.ru), James A. Farr, Joseph Lang (CEO of Album Rare Coin), Hodge Mehdi Malek, and Wayne G. Sayles is also included.

Stephen Album is the most distinguished Islamic scholar of his generation. His works are characterized by the care he takes in identifying the coins, the clarity of the pictures and the breadth of references to literature in the field. From this carefully constructed base he offers interpretations of the data. It is both the breadth and depth of his contributions, which set him apart from his peers in the Islamic field.

Album’s Checklist of Islamic Coins, soon out in its third edition, has become the basic guide for collectors, dealers and museums interested in Islamic coinage. His articles on issues involving the complex history of Iranian numismatics have been published in such peer reviewed journals as the British Institute’s Iran. It is however the publications of the Sylloge of Islamic Coins in the Ashmolean that have established a breadth and depth of scholarship not seen since George Miles, who received the Huntington Award in 1949.

The first volume published was on the coinage of Arabia and East Africa (1999). No previous scholarship had systematically studied the coinage of both of these areas. Album had to research an extremely wide range of sources for both areas and bring together the findings of many scholars to present a coherent picture for the separate geographic zones. The next volume dealt with the coinage of Iran after the Mongol Invasion (2001), which contains the most scholarly overview of this confusing area of numismatics, which lasts over seven centuries. With his most recent book, Pre-reform Coinage of the Early Islamic Period (2002), he has brought greater order and understanding to this complex story than any previous scholar and his work will quickly become the new base line from which other scholarly contributions grow.”

I would only add now in 2017 that Steve’s 3rd edition of his Checklist of Islamic Coins is the most important single reference for studying any period of Islamic numismatics and I anticipate that future editions will only reconfirm the fundamental importance of this work for collectors, curators, scholars and students throughout the world. Creating a digital version of his sales catalogues turned an important reference into an essential one as the inclusion of images allows a worldwide audience to draw upon this reference as a source for scholarship as well as collecting. In addition, Steve has always been generous in answering my numerous questions over the decades as we have known one another since the 1970s.

For more information, or to order, see:
Iranian Numismatic Studies. A Volume in Honor of Stephen Album. 2017 (https://www.cngcoins.com/Shop_cart.aspx?ITEM_ID=341719)

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