Customer Reviews

Medieval European Coinage: Volume 1, The Early Middle Ages (5th-10th Centuries)

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I am referring to the paperback, but some features are common. This book is pitched at the scholar and numismatist, and as such I would have expected the book to be printed with decent margins, especially the spine margins. They are too narrow and with constant use the book will split, and because they are too narrow, rebinding will be difficult. The illustrations are particularly poor, especially when they are compared to Grierson's other work, European Medieval Coinage published by Seaby. I would expect not only some colour, but them to be of the same quality as every auction house employs these days. After all, the novice likes to see well presented and informative work too. I am pleased that they did not use clay-filled paper like art books so that it will at least last some time without the weight of itself causing collapse.
All in all, quite disappointing for the price.

Note: Haven't read too much yet, but appears to have a lot of history and be very well researched. I really hope they continue this series and would strongly recommend they use color plates for the coin pictures.

In my book, "Astronomical Symbols on Ancient and Medieval Coins", I devote a number of chapters in the book to the astronomical symbols that were depicted on medieval European coinage as signs of divine right to sovereignty. As part of my research, I read numerous books on medieval European numismatics and history, and I found that Grierson's book, "MEC Volume I," was especially useful.

It is extremely difficult to find so many coins of the first half of the middle ages described in a single volume. There are many, many plates of photographs of coins, and also some plates showing forgeries.

This book was originally published as a hard back with a list price of $125, but was soon sold out and was going for almost $200 on secondary markets. I sold my first copy to a friend, and then found out how expensive it was to buy this book for a second time. Now that it is available as a paperback, the cost is once again more reasonable for obtaining a copy.

I highly recommend this book to all who are interested in European numismatic history.

Marshall Faintich