Monday, August 07, 2006

Two classics by Percy Gardner

Google brings us The Coins of the Greek and Scythic Kings of Bactria and India in the British Museum (1886) by Percy Gardner.

Although not officially part of BMC Greek (it's volume 1 of BMC India) it looks just like the BMC Greek volumes and covers Greek coinage.

Plates begin here.

I'm happy to see this; I have an Indian reprint which is low-quality (smudgey newsprint) and nearly unusuable. There seems to be some problems with the plates here — when you can see them they are high quality but parts are missing. Perhaps the original is brittle and falling apart?

Even if your local library has these fragile original it often makes sense to use Google's copy avoiding further damage to the original. Rather than destroying the originals I'd prefer to see them archived in giant warehouses in Alaska north of the frost line.

Also new is A Grammar of Greek Art (1905) by Percy Gardener. I'd purchased a cheap original on eBay with the intention of scanning the coin chapter and some of the clip-art (it's hard to find copyright free Greek clip art for school presentations, etc). Now I won't have to. The chapter on coins is Chapter XVI: Coins in Relation to History.

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