Dated Coins of Antiquity, Release 2 (DCA2), two-volume set, $195

133660000.

Cohen, Edward E. Dated Coins of Antiquity, Release 2. Two Volumes, 2023. Hardbound. 916 pp including appendices; more than 100 issuing states or authorities, nearly 1200 type coins struck in gold, silver and bronze with color enlargements, exceeding 10,000 different dated coins (GR, RR). (GR366)

DCA2 is a substantially complete and revised catalog of dated coins before the lifetime of Jesus Christ. Where a coin series such as the biblical shekels of Tyre crosses the millennium divide of 1 BC / 1 AD, the catalog continues to its last dated coin in the AD era. The coins of antiquity used various kinds of numbers and more than 50 calendar systems for dating that have no familiarity to most modern readers. Their calendars and notations for numbers varied among cities and even over time in the same city. For each dated coin, DCA2 reproduces the date as written accompanied by its BC or AD equivalent. DCA2 also cross-references each coin to other standard catalogs, including DCA, when previously published or when auctioned in the marketplace.

DCA2 is a major expansion from the first release, DCA, and requires a two-volume set. Volume 1 consists of dated coins from Europe, Northern and Central Asia including the Seleukid Kings and Queens, Syrian Cities, Parthian Kings and Queens, kingdoms such as Characene and Elymais under Persian Influence, Anatolia and Armenia. Volume 2 has the dated coins for Phoenicia, Mediterranean Islands, Southern Levant, Nabataea, Africa including the Ptolemaic Kingdom, monthly dated coins and exhaustive finder Appendices. At least one enlarged color photo accompanies nearly all coin types. DCA2 assigns new catalogue numbers to each type coin. Adjacent to each DCA2 number is the corresponding catalog number in the first release when appropriate.

Starting with the first dated coin by Zankle Sicily in 494/493 BC, DCA2 lists all coins displaying annual or monthly dates expressed in numerals or words. More than 100 issuing states or authorities are represented. The catalog describes nearly 1200 type coins struck in gold, silver and bronze, exceeding 10,000 different dated coins. DCA2 reports hundreds of dated coins and their sources that appear in no other catalog.

Several areas are especially noteworthy. A new denomination has been added to the first dated coins from Zankle. The Phoenician cities under Persian rule – including Arados, Marathos, Gabala, Sidon, and Tyre – show dozens of unreported dates, denominations and designs. The Tyre section for the Melkart shekels, half shekels and quarter shekels includes more than 15 unreported dates and overdates with photos that were not published in DCA or in the 2017 DCA-Tyre supplement. The rarity of individual dates for these shekels of Tyre is given. Guidelines also help the reader to distinguish the many similar coins of the Egyptian Ptolemaic Empire. For Nabataea, the listing has doubled in size.

BOOK REVIEW: DATED COINS OF ANTIQUITY, RELEASE 2

David L. Vagi submitted this review of the second release of Edward E. Cohen's Dated Coins of Antiquity. Thank you! Impressive review of an impressive work. -Editor

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.

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.

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.