The Stockholm coin dealer Roberto Delzanno was very busy during the last few years. In 2019, his 450-page catalogue of Swedish gold coins minted between 1512 and 2020 was published, it recently won the IAPN (International Association of Professional Numismatists) Book Prize. This was followed in 2020 by a two-volume catalogue of Swedish coins minted between 995 and 2022, totalling 1326 pages. Here you can read the book review by Ursula Kampmann.
Nun folgt ein sinnvoller nächster Schritt: Ein Katalog im Taschenbuchformat, der die wesentlichen Informationen der großformatigen Vorgänger bündelt. Das „Myntårsboken“ (Münzjahrbuch) beinhaltet alle schwedischen Münzen von 995 bis 2021, sortiert nach Herrschern. Daran schließen sich gesonderte Kapitel zu Geldscheinen und Medaillen an. Wie dem „Jahrbuch“ im Titel zu entnehmen ist, sind jährliche Neuauflagen beabsichtigt.
Now the author decided to take a reasonable next step: a pocket-sized catalogue that compiles the most important facts its large-format predecessors. The “Myntårsboken” (Coin Yearbook) contains all Swedish coins minted between 995 and 2021, sorted by ruler. This is followed by a separate chapter on banknotes and medals. As you can see from the title “yearbook”, they plan to publish new editions annually.
What’s Missing?
Of course, one cannot help but wonder which parts were lost in the transformation from three large catalogues to a single small one. For one thing, not all the material was included. For example, the coinage of Swedish territories from Sweden’s era as a great European power is missing. For German readers this means that the coinage of cities that were occupied by the Swedish during the Thirty Years’ War cannot be found in the volume. The range of the medals included was also reduced; they are now listed in a separate chapter.
Above all, the “yearbook” does not contain any of all the extensive, explanatory texts on coins, mints and rulers. They were particularly lengthy because they were printed in German, English and Swedish. At the same time, Delzanno was thus able to remedy a point of criticism regarding his last catalogue as translations where scattered and it was unclear why some parts where multilingual and others where not.
Talar du svenska?
Thus, the catalogue was reduced to the essentials in the best possible way. The information about the coins contains their reference numbers in relevant catalogues and in Delzanno’s works, their rarity, the price for various qualities and in the case of rare pieces the number of known specimens. Those who have already worked with Delzanno’s catalogues will be able to use this work effortlessly as the system of the previous catalogues was adopted. All other users – and especially international readers – will have to spend some time getting to know the catalogue since most explanations on using the catalogue and the abbreviations of the preface are only given in Swedish. Coin grades are also given only according to the Scandinavian system. The introduction tells us what the German and English equivalents of these grades are.
All in all, you really get a lot with this catalogue. Information on more than 1000 years of Swedish numismatics was sensibly reduced to what’s most important. The “Myntårsboken” is less of a reading book than the large-format catalogues of the author, it rather is a practical manual that can conveniently be taken to any coin fair. Moreover, international readers can also use it very well – after getting a bit familiar with it and looking up some Swedish terms. With a price of just 10 euros, there is no reason not to add this work to your library.
In this article we reviewed the two-volume Sveriges Myntbok.
Unlike the author’s previous works, this one cannot be ordered via Gietl at the moment. In Europe, you can best order it from the website of Robert Delzanno.
In the USA, the catalogue can be purchased from the Coin & Currency Institute.
