Literature on Numismatics

In the course of time every serious coin and medal collector builds up his own library. Starting with general literature, pieces directly relating to its field of interest, up to auction material, which might contain a major collection about exactly this topic. It is not unusual that it takes the same time for building up your own library as the coin collection itself. Many titles that are labled as reference work are no longer available in bookstores, but have to be discovered at auctions, coin dealers or antiquarian bookshops.

If you are interested in Ancient Numismatics, especially the greek mainland, you won't get around Imhoof-Blumer's Die antiken Münzen Nordgriechenlands. This work was issued in several volumes between 1898 and 1935 and is very hard to find. Single volumes are sometimes offered at auctions but if you want to get the complete work, maybe even in a binding of the time of issue, you need to bring plenty of endurance. Just like this work, many others out of print were released as reprints. These are often used as reference books in order to conserve the originals.

We just wanted to give you an example of how hard it can be to find good and important literature. Our members have an advantage! Close to Frankfurt the GIG's own numismatic library with more than 4.000 titles is located. That's where you can find literature of almost all fields of numismatics.

The Internet also serves as profound resource. Search engines, data bases of antiquarian bookshops, online auction catalogues or digitalized works can be searched directly. The chances to find your piece are tremendous, all you need is time ... lots of time!