The two main sources every numismatist uses are British catalogue Roman Imperial Coinage (RIC) and Henry Cohen’s massive corpuses on Roman Republican coins (Description Generale des Monnaies De La Republique Romaine, Communement Appelees Medailles Consulaires) and on Roman Imperial Coins (Description historique des monnaies frappées sous l’Empire Romain). Timeline of Roman coins, by the Museum of the National Bank, via National Bank of the NRM A great way to start is to check out the Digital Library Numis, an excellent research tool that contains a huge number of numismatics books, papers and manuals. If you’re an absolute beginner, I would recommend reading a couple of books or papers on Roman coinage to familiarize yourself with terminology, denominations, and general rules. For numismatists (scholars that study historical currencies) those tools are manuals, catalogs and online databases. Use Proper Literature To Identify and Date Roman Coinsīefore analyzing your coin, make sure to arm yourself with proper tools.
