BOOK REVIEW: THE NUMISMATIST'S GUIDE

 

O'Connor, Patrick. The Numismatist's Guide: Standard Reference for the Study of Coins and Paper Money. San Antonio, TX: Aurora Rarities, LLC, 2025. English, 420 pages, full color.

Patrick O'Connor has written what can accurately be described as a textbook of numismatic knowledge. His book, The Numismatist's Guide: Standard Reference for the Study of Coins and Paper Money (hereafter, the Guide) not only lives up to its name, but provides a process so that the book can continue to grow and improve as new information is gathered and inserted.

And to be honest, the numismatic community has needed a systematic approach to the study of coins for decades. What has long been considered the numismatic go-to textbook has been Philip Grierson's fifty-year old classic by that very name, Numismatics. Grierson was an expert on medieval and Byzantine coinage, but he actually used coins as an adjunct to teach history, his primary interest. Thus, the first half of his book is on the history of coinage, starting with Greek, Romans and other ancient cultures, moving then onto the Eastern cultures of coinage and finally modern European traditions. It is not until rather late in the book that he begins talking about coin symbolism, minting techniques, coin hoards and, finally on page 140, dealing with the actual techniques and metrology the numismatist will employ. Grierson also wrote primarily on "ancient" coinage, he wrote before the era of grading companies and colored stickers, and the Newman Portal, to say nothing of XRF machines, were unimagined complications to the science of numismatics.

Most other "Introductions to Coins" take the same approach as Grierson: the history of coins starting with the Greeks first, then later, if at all, information about how to treat them as objects. O'Connor correctly gets the horse in front of the cart and within the first chapter is discussing assaying and metallurgy.

Patrick's infatuation with coins followed the same genetic trajectory as many coin collectors. As a youngster he found a jar of coins his father had put aside, was intrigued by some of the older ones and the next thing you know, young Pat is placing ads to buy and sell coins in the local newspaper. As a teenager.

Again, like many hard-core numismatists, coins became secondary while Patrick obtained a B.S. in Engineering from Trinity University and established a career and a family. But the genetic pull of coins never abated and when he was a little older, he once again became a part-time coin dealer, establishing Aurora Rarities, LLC in south Texas. He also found time to write his first book: The Coins of Queen Isabel II of Spain (2017). It was well received in both Spain and the United States as well as in the Philippines, where Queen Isabel is a national favorite.

O'Connor started systematizing his numismatic knowledge with the hope of one day writing the very book now under review. He has done an admirable job of gathering together the many strands that make up the science of numismatics into a single, organized structure. And organized it is. The entire book is laid out as one giant outline, with Arabic numerals dividing the chapters, sections and subsections. Every subject has an entry and new subjects and commentary can be added as the need arises. His outline system is so precise that, for instance, "numismatic notation" has its own sub section (2.5.4), as do "desiccants" (2.6.2.1). Know of a slick way to remove glue from a coin using low heat? That would go in Chapter 2: Numismatic Fundamentals Section 2 Subsection 6. Paragraph 3: Common Procedures for Conserving Coins. Have an insight on self-publishing? Chapter 4, section 7. Paragraph 4 would be the place to insert that information. O'Connor invites the numismatic community to add their own insights to the book so that the knowledge base continually grows. The outline format that he has organized the book into easily facilitates the addition of new nuggets of information.

 

O'Connor divides the Guide into four sections: The Nature of Money, Numismatic Fundamentals, The Numismatic Community and The Role of the Numismatist. From the chapter titles alone, it is obvious O'Connor is taking an all-inclusive approach, covering everything from minting technology to photographic lighting for coins to the role of the independent author. Along the way he also manages to hit on dealer ethics, grading, and the relationship between price guides and value, among a myriad of other related topics.

The Nature of Money
This section gives an overview on the development of trade, the role of primitive money and a brief history of coinage. He then jumps right into metrology and minting methods, including a brief survey of paper money that discusses paper making and printing techniques.

Numismatic Fundamentals
This is the heart of any text on numismatics, as it should be. Besides identification, authentication, valuation, preservation and photographing of coins, O'Connor also delves deep into conservation, an area of special interest for him and one where he continues to experiment and test new techniques. His love for the subject is shown by the sixty pages he devotes to conservation techniques and insights.

The Numismatic Community
This was a welcome addition to any book on numismatics: a discussion of the players involved. O'Connor covers dealers, auction houses, third party grading services, mints, numismatic organizations and social media—all important background and supporting entities to the collector. He also discusses international, federal and state regulations as they apply to the individual collector.

The Role of the Numismatist
Yet another great section is on the role of the numismatist. What is the difference between a coin collector and a numismatist? What is his collecting philosophy? What are his ethics? How do you become a dealer? How do you become a serious researcher? What jobs or independent work is there for the studious numismatist?

 

O'Connor closes his book with a nice collection of appendixes linked to every topic he has covered: from numismatic literature to international regulations. Each appendix has a bibliographic reference for more information about that subject.

When I have reviewed other articles and books in the past about numismatic education, I notice several areas of minutiae that are usually overlooked. I am pleased to see that O'Connor addressed several of my concerns.

First, he is among the few I've noted who realized the importance of a firm understanding of dating and calendar systems to numismatics. Many years ago, I asked Ken Bressett what book or books he would recommend as a numismatic textbook. Besides Grierson's Numismatics, mentioned previously, Ken also suggested Tempus in Nummis by James Sweeny and Robert Turfboer (1992). This delightful but often overlooked 2-volume set discusses numerals and numbers, calendar systems and calendar medals, era dating, temporal symbols and the art of the chronogram, or covert dates on coins. This important sub-sub-subject is not always recognized—O'Connor spends several pages on calendar systems (Section 2.1.1.1).

He also understands that heraldry is a visual alphabet for the illiterate, so that any stable boy would recognize whose coach belonged to who based on their coat-of-arms. Extended to coinage, particularly from the time of the Renaissance, a firm understanding of heraldry can allow instant identification of otherwise problematic coins. O'Connor gives a good introduction to the subject.

The problem from a critical reviewer's perspective is that whatever negative thing I could think to say about this work (and there is virtually nothing), the very act of me pointing it out would necessitate me being the one who corrected it! Pretty clever, Pat.

That being said, there were a few things I noticed that in future editions will probably be more fully addressed. The first of these would be an index at the back of the book so old guys like me don't have to remember which page the stuff about heraldry was on: I could just look up in the index.

And when it comes to numismatic research (2.8.1), I would like to see a few points about adult education and about research methods emphasized that often are overlooked.

Regarding numismatic education, it is important to note that children and adults learn differently, or in educational parlance, the difference between pedagogy and andragogy. "Coins in the Classroom" and Boy Scout merit badges are worthy efforts but they should not be confused with numismatic research at the level necessary to be recognized scholastically. O'Connor's textbook is just that: a deep, encompassing work that is definitely at the post-graduate level.

Regarding research methods, the numismatic community is usually fairly scholastic in their approach when it comes to quantitative research. That is, we can weigh and measure and compare and contrast coin data with the best of the STEM folk. Because whether they realize it or not, (and the point of numismatic research is to get them to realize this), coin researchers generally follow the standard methodology format for quantitative research: Statement of the Problem (Were the coins of King X debased?); Review of the Literature (Here's what everyone who ever studied the problem said about it); Proposal (Here's what we are going to try differently); Data Collection (Weigh and measure); Data Analysis and Conclusion (Yup, he was short-changing his subjects). Rinse and repeat, as this is the essence of quantitative research. Different researchers should be able to look at the same coins, measure them and come to the same conclusions.

Not so with qualitative research methods, an area where the greatest amount of numismatic "research" masquerades as being "educational." Because qualitative research, while a valid method of investigating and arriving at "truth", is not replicable. That is, if three different people interview Q. David Bowers at three different times, they are not going to get duplicative results, because they will ask different questions, things would have changed in Bowers's life in the interim and their level of numismatic knowledge may be widely variant. Their research is still valid; it just is not as reproducible as is quantitative research.

As a consequence, qualitative researchers have developed a series of guidelines and rules that they follow for their work to be considered valid, just as with quantitative researchers. And this is the very area where, as numismatic educators, we fail to hit the mark, because our qualitative research rarely rises above the level of ‘Review of the Literature', reworded. I think, for instance, of the private gold minting company of Clark, Gruber & Co., where not a single new fact has been added to their storyline in 100 years of "research", but a simple peek behind the curtain would reveal such unknown tidbits as: the largest ginkgo tree in Kansas is in the front yard of the still standing Clark mansion in Leavenworth, a gift of the Japanese ambassador. Emanuel Gruber built a huge mansion, never lived in it, paid someone to take his place in the Civil War and yet is buried in Arlington Cemetery. And one more. The other Clark's daughter was a model for both the Gibson Girls and Coca-Cola trays. And you thought Clark & Gruber just made nice gold coins.

O'Connor's research clearly does not have the "reword the literature" problem. He says his book "provides a foundation of numismatic knowledge, including many aspects never before addressed in other books. It clarifies basic information and pulls back the curtain on advanced concepts known only to insiders. It promises to enlighten and serve as a handy reference for both expert and novice collectors." He hopes the Guide will make numismatics more approachable to people who might not otherwise study it and serve as a foundation the numismatic community can discuss and build upon. I heartily applaud O'Connor's efforts and congratulate him on helping the community take a giant step forward in numismatic education.

The first edition of the Guide has sold out and the second printing should be available by Thanksgiving on Apple eBook. O'Connor hopes the Guide can be published for a target price of $42, which is pretty cheap for a college-level course in numismatics. More and more accurate information can be found on Patrick's web-site: https://www.thenumismatistsguide.com/the-book.html

After it is all said and done, I can only give Patrick and his Numismatist Guide the highest compliment one author can offer another: I wish I would have written that book.

Patrick adds:

To read the earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
NEW BOOK: COINS OF QUEEN ISABEL II OF SPAIN (https://www.coinbooks.org/v20/esylum_v20n40a03.html)
NEW BOOK: THE NUMISMATIST'S GUIDE (https://www.coinbooks.org/v28/esylum_v28n36a03.html)

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