This is truly the most exciting book to hit the field of French numismatics this decade! Described by the author as a "field guide" to the series, it makes identifying coins easy by arranging them into "sensible groups" of related types, rather than chronologically or geographically. These groups are based on relationships between designs, not simple arbitrary groupings. Crossing the boundaries of royal and feudal, this book relates imitative local coinages to their prototypes, including related coinages beyond the borders of France in Flanders, Luxembourg, Alsace-Loraine and Savoy. A series included in this work, not always covered by others is the Merovingian coinage of the 5th to 8th centuries. Series covered include not only good silver but billon (base silver) as well. Over 7,300 illustrations intelligently placed make this book simple to use, and hundreds of maps - one for each basic type - show numismatists the geographical dispersion of related types. Each entry also carries cross references to at least one source. 1996, 587 pages, profusely illustrated throughout.
