RU: Numismatic Books at Presidential Library

[chrisild]

The Russian "Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library" now has two important numismatic books online. I read about this but do not speak Russian, so I cannot try them out. But you might.

One is the Description of monuments - Russian coins before 1547 by Alexey Oreshnikov, published in 1896. "The book contains descriptions of 1,053 coins, sorted by territory. Each chapter provides a commentary on the coins and coin circulation features in a particular area."

Then we have Coin and Weight in Russia until the end of the 18th century, published in 1865. The author was the archeologist Dmitry Prozorovsky, and the book provides "detailed description of Russian and foreign coins, as well as the values of ancient coin units and their analogues according to the current value."

Source: http://www.prlib.ru/en-us/events/pages/item.aspx?itemid=512
(That article is in English, with links to pages in Russian.)

Christian

[Figleaf]

You can read to much into it. This is a book collection that has nothing to do with Boris Yeltsin (who was too drunk to read anyway) and probably little to do with any Russian president, though there may be an agreement of sponsorship or patronage with no consequences for either side, except for the use of the word presidential. The books mentioned are first editions. The book collectors probably couldn't care less if the books were a description of coins or a manual for whipping your wife. Several of such old books in Russian are online. More info here.

Peter

[chrisild]

Here is some (very brief) info about the library and its name ...

Christian