BOOK REVIEW: DATED COINS OF ANTIQUITY, RELEASE 2

 

Dated Coins of Antiquity, Release 2 (DCA2), by Edward E. Cohen. Classical Numismatic Group, Inc., Lancaster, PA, 2023. Two volumes, hardbound. 907 pages. $195 from the publisher.

When Mr. Cohen's Dated Coins of Antiquity originally was released in 2011, it was a monumental addition to numismatic literature. Ever since, its value has been proven worldwide among catalogers, dealers, curators, scholars, researchers and collectors who rely upon it to perform their work with accuracy and efficiency.

The release of DCA2 a dozen years after the original is an achievement on similar scale, if such a thing is reasonable to state. It's not merely an update or slight revision, but a significant expansion of a work that most users might believe held little room for improvement.

It's worth pointing out that few books on ancient coins offer such broad utility. Though many outstanding works have appeared in recent decades, most are, by the nature of their chosen subject, narrowly focused.

Cohen's work is considerably different: a comprehensive survey, listing every dated ancient ‘Greek' coin issued before the lifetime of Jesus Christ (and some beyond) which the author has encountered in the literature and the marketplace.

As a veteran researcher, Cohen would be the first to admit a work of this kind is never ‘finished,' as discoveries are destined to emerge the moment a magnum opus like this goes to press. Those rare and exciting finds aside, DCA2 is masterful and authoritative, and will serve its intended purpose long into the future.

Users will be thankful that the author has done all the heavy lifting, distilling his in-depth findings into a single, eminently useful work.

The sheer magnitude of Cohen's understanding of how ancient Greek coins were dated is made clear in these two volumes. His ability to work with different calendar systems, scripts and varying approaches to dating, continues to impress in DCA2, where he makes it easy for non-specialists to draw conclusions.

We may start with the obvious: the page count of DCA2 is 40 percent greater than its predecessor, and at more than 900 pages, it has been appropriately divided into two volumes.

The hardcovers are glossy and durable, the binding strong, and the paper of the ideal weight and finish to allow these books to endure the daily use to which so many copies will be subjected.

 
Bronze issued at Damascus in 37-36 B.C. for the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra VII

Cohen has located enough new dated coins to increase his number of citations by more than ten percent, and in doing so has added more than 100 new coin types.

There is a significant expansion in the reported dates (and sometimes, types) for mints in Phoenicia, Nabataea, Characene and Elymais. The Ptolemaic listings are bolstered to 125 pages, with tables and notes to help users identify coins which often prove challenging – even to veteran catalogers.

The book's basic format has not changed, assuring those familiar with his earlier work will navigate this new work with equal efficiency.

Because DCA2 is such a significant expansion over its predecessor, the author has restructured its order, this time adhering to a more intuitive order of geographical location of issuing authorities (while keeping intact the listings for kingdoms which struck coins at mints spanning several regions). This, the users will find, is an improvement over the first release.

The expansion and re-organization demanded a new numbering system, which Cohen makes as painless as possible by citing the original DCA number at the point of listing. He also collects these numbers in a table of concordance, which is sure to be the first stop for those working with the benefit of an original DCA number.

The reader is well served by Cohen's dutiful citation of other references, such as standard works and auction appearances, which guide the reader to where they'll find another example of a coin they're researching. This is especially useful for those seeking die matches or looking to compare aspects of style or fabric with a specimen they possess.

 
Silver Tetradrachm of Ptolemaic Egypt, issued at the Ptolemais mint in 148-147 B.C.

The work is well illustrated, with enlarged color photos of most of the more than 1,200 types given a DCA2 number. In many cases, these illustrations are supplemented with enlargements of the portion of the design where the date appears.

It's no slight that the vast majority of the 10,000+ coins listed are not illustrated. However, DCA2 indicates the date as it appears on each of these coins, so it does not hinder identification. To illustrate an example of every coin listed would require at least another decade of diligent work and would expand the present work by several thousand pages.

Users will benefit from appendices the author includes for geographical locations, people, and obverse and reverse designs. Another useful feature is Cohen's extensive bibliography, listing the sources from which he mined so much of his information.

The scope of Cohen's research over the last several decades has given him an excellent understanding of the rarity of various Greek coins, which he shares with the reader for each coin type, or in some series, by individual date.

Cohen's estimations of rarity, which are presented throughout the work, reflect his experience in recording specimens he's encountered in the marketplace. To guide readers, he offers a table in which the ratings (common through R3) are described and explained.

The rarity ratings are intuitive, and readers will find them useful. Cohen's ‘time-sensitive' definition of rarity incorporates an important (and often underappreciated) component: an expectation of how long a collector who searches diligently might have to wait for the chance to acquire a specimen.

Users will also benefit from the upgraded photographic treatments in listings for the royal coinage of Bithynia, Armenia, and the Seleucids, as well as for pre-Imperial cistophori.

One field in which Cohen is especially invested as a researcher is the silver coinage of Tyre, which he covers here well beyond the lifetime of Jesus Christ, up through the apparent cessation of the series in A.D. 65/6.

His listing for Tyre is comprehensive, even exceeding that which appears in his separate publications on the subject. It includes a number of previously unreported dates and overdates (each with a photograph) as well as revised rarity ratings (by date). Further, it adds gold mnaieia of two dates, based on examples in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

As I reach the end of this review, I'm compelled to echo the sentiments of my review of the first publication of DCA so many years ago, for DCA2 is everything that the original proved to be, and so much more.

There is no question that DCA2 is an extraordinary book of immediate and lasting value. It is a worthwhile acquisition not only for its authoritative contents, but as an economical, compact option to the substantial library one otherwise would have to acquire to possess the kind of information Mr. Cohen's book offers on so diverse a selection of ancient coins.

For more information, or to order, see:
Dated Coins of Antiquity, Release 2 (DCA2), two-volume set, $195 (https://cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=396425)

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