Customer Reviews

The International Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Numismatics

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To call this book a numismatic encyclopedia, is the same as calling a feral hog a concert pianist. 99% of the actual numismatic terms in the book are already known by every numismatist worth his salt. The majority of the book is taken up by terms that are of a language other than English, which one never encounters in coin collecting.
Here are examples of what this book has to offer: ufuldstaendig [Dan.] incomplete ....now how many times do you as a coin collector run into the term ufuldstaendig? As if that were not enough he takes the same word and lists it many times in various languages...the term incomplete is listed in Norweigian and Danish. The author also defines such difficult terms as "round" just in case you are not aware what the meaning of "round" is. Or maybe you are looking for that "numismatic term" in Polish that means "credit cards accepted"...if so this is the book for you. (przyjmujemy karty kredytowe) No I don't need to know the Turkish word for "prepayment", nor the Hungarian word for "magnifying glass"....
What I had hoped this book would be is something that would explain terminology for American and British numismatics, terms for diesinking, terms for various decorations on coins, etc. This is not it. This is NOT a summary of information on numismatics. Pages 330-427 are wasted in printing words in various languages.. perhaps you want to know how to write the word lithograhy in German, French, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish, but I do not.