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Preface to the Fourth Edition

SINCE the publication of the second edition of this Guide (1881), I have had occasion, during the preparation of my large work Historia Numorum (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1887), to re-examine tray by tray the entire collection of Greek coins in the British Museum. This revision has enabled me to make some material improvements in the text of the Guide. Numerous and important articles have also appeared in various Numismatic publications both at home and abroad, some of which involve re-attributions of whole series of coins. The arrangement adopted in this Guide is fortunately very slightly affected by these new discoveries, as they for the most part merely call for an occasional change of local attribution within the periods to which the coins were previously assigned. The most important re-attributions are the following: I. A. 10 from Lesbos (?) to old Smyrna; I. A. 21 from Clazomenæ to Cyrene; I. A. 22 from Colophon to Delos; II. A. 21, 22, Ancore to Apollonia ad Rhyndacum; V. B. 28, Allaria to Lacedaemon; VI. C. 30-32, and VII. C. 39, Numidia, Mauretania, to Carthago-Nova(?), the capital of the Barcide dynasty in Spain. In the few instances in which a change of period as well as of locality is necessitated, the fact has been noted in the revised text; but, as complete sets of electrotypes have already been widely distributed among British and Foreign Museums, I have not thought it advisable to make changes in the arrangement of the Plates, which are consquently identical with those of the previous editions, for any alteration in the numbering of the specimens might lead to mich confusion in cases where this Guide has been quoted as a work of reference. On the seven representative Plates of the half-crown edition, reference are given to the fully illustrated edition containing seventy Plates.

BARCLAY V. HEAD.

June, 1895.


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