Friday, February 20, 2009

Bill Daehn's website


Bill Daehn, author of an important bibliography on Greek Numismatics, has a small web site. His site includes a very useful table of Greek weight standards that has been helpful to me.

The site includes many of his articles. A good one is his Asylum article on his copy of Pinkerton's An Essay on Medals (1808) [PDF].
Pinkerton was born at Edinburgh, Scotland, on February 13, 1758 ... Pinkerton's interest in coins began as a child, when a lady, who had received an ancient Roman coin in circulation as a farthing, gave the coin to him.
If reading Daehn's essay makes you interested in Pinkerton's book both volume 1 and volume 2 can be viewed and downloaded from Google Books.

If you believe, as Daehn does, “When holding and reading an original edition, the collector feels a closer connection to the time and place in which the book was written. In comparison, the reprint feels ‘too modern,’ and part of that all-important connection is lost” you'll be happy to know that sellers on AbeBooks.com are offering Pinkerton two-volume sets, both 1st editions and the 1808 reprint, at prices ranging from $37 to $316.

$37 is actually quite a good price for a two-volume 18th century numismatic work in English with plates! I am tempted to buy it myself.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually the 37 usd book was in a single volume. I bought it and I'm happy anyway. Thanks for the tip :)

Anonymous said...

I almost forgot, the one-volume edition have no plates.