Created: 23 Sep 2022
Note: I excerpted portions of this post for an article on FORVM’s Numiswiki (14 Jan 2023). Incidentally, Numiswiki is a great ancient coin information resource (also mentioned on my Annotated Resources page).
See also: Complete “Provenance Glossary.”
Some coins and a book by the important British numismatist, Rev. Richard J. Plant (1928-2020), well known for his books on Greek, Roman, and Arabic coins.
Jump straight to the Plant Biography / Bibliography
Roman Judaea, Samaria, Neapolis, Domitian AE20 (Assarion or Dupondius?) (20mm, 7.11g, 6h), dated Year 11 (L-AI), 82-83 CE.
Obverse: ΑΥΤΟΚ ΔΟΜΙΤΙΑΝΟΣ ΚΑΙΣΑΡ ΣΕΒΑΣΤΟΣ. Laureate head of Domitian.
Reverse: ΦΛΑΟΥΙ ΝΕΑΠΟΛΙ ΣΑΜΑ L – ΑΙ. Palm tree.
References: RPC 2220; Plant 1881 (this rev. illustrated?).
Provenance: Ex Collection of Rev. Richard J Plant (1928-2020); Naville 64 (2021), 235.
The coin above was the model for Type 1881 (reverse) in his 1979 book on Greek Coin Types and Their Identification (pp. 106 and 262). (See my copy illustrated and discussed below.) Plant was particularly known for using his own line drawings in books, rather than photographic plates.
Plant often illustrated coins from his own collection (he also used the Weber Collection, but this type wasn’t illustrated there), combining “realistic” and “idealized” renderings of coin models. In this case, he cleaned up the reverse legends and centering a bit, but accurately rendered the reverse die and even the minor double strike from 12h-3h! The obverse is heavily idealized and couldn’t be a realistic depiction of any actual specimen of this type. (I’ve never seen an example with such a complete legend.)
Some more coins ex Richard Plant Collection:
Richard J Plant Biography & Bibliography:
Rev. Richard J Plant (1928-2020) – once dubbed “the Reverend of Numismatics” by The Celator (see issues linked below) – was a Methodist Minister in the UK and well-known author on classical numismatics. He began collecting ancient coins shortly after being stationed in Tripoli after WWII, c. 1948.
He died in 2020 and his collection was dispersed beginning in 2021 by two London-based coin firms, Dix Noonan Webb and Naville Numismatics. The DNW website catalogs much of the collection, along with an extended biographical foreword by his son (199 Lots sold at DNW 188, the 2021 Feb 9 Auction [Special Collection 991], though the Islamic/Medieval coins are cataloged separately).
(See also the Numismatic Bibliomania Society’s E-Sylum Vol 23 – No 36 – Article 8 [2020 Sep 6] for the obituary/biographical essay.)
Books by Richard J Plant:
In addition to his hand drawn illustrations, Plant’s books are known for a focus on linguistic understanding, including most famously Arabic Coins and How to Read Them.
Arabic Coins and How to Read Them (1973).
Greek, Semitic Asiatic Coins and How to Read Them (1979 [2013, “revised & augmented”]; “his magnum opus”; the 1979 edition was only printed in 100 copies; NBS E-Sylum review).
Greek Coin Types and Their Identification (1979, Seaby).
Roman Base Metal Coins (2000).
Roman Silver Coins (2005).
A Numismatic Journey Through the Bible (2007; foreword by David Hendin; RJP’s “last substantial book”).
Some articles in The Celator:
The Celator Vol 24, No 3 (2010 March), “Meet the Reverend of Numismatics: Conversations with Richard Plant,“ by Mark Fox (pp. 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 34-37, 56; .pdf extract saved). [He was stationed in Tripoli during the aftermath of the war, ca. 1946-1948? and discusses how that shaped his collecting.] See also the warm reader comments in the subsequent issue, The Celator Vol 24, No 4 (2010 April): pp. 4 & 40.
The Celator Vol 22, No 1 (2008 January), “A Numismatic Lexicon” by Richard Plant (pp. 28-29, illustrated with 5 of Plant’s line drawings).
Below, my copy of the book from which the illustration comes (see below for why I included a photo of the previous owner’s scribblings):
Plant, Richard J. 1979. Greek Coin Types and Their Identification. London: Seaby.
[Clain-Stefanelli 1859 & 3492; Daehn 1033; Kroh pp. 8 & 66 (3 Stars)]
Brief Aside: Dobbins & Cavafy.
As it happens, the book itself also has a notable provenance. It was one of 14 books I bought that were from the library of Ray Dobbins (1947-2021, AKA Jim Flannigan, East Village NYC). He was a well-known author/playwright in gay literature, as well as a videographer, activist, and songwriter (Jazz Passengers et al.). A 2018 interview clip with him about Stonewall and civil rights movements is available from the oral history project, “The Digital Downtown” at NYU.
The passage he inscribed in the rear free endpaper comes from a poem by the notable Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933, Alexandria, Egypt) [his wiki page], “Hidden Things”: “Let them not seek to discover who [I was] from all tha[t] I have done and said.” (I wonder why he stopped mid-word!) Ray Dobbins wrote a biographical play about Cavafy, Read my Hips, which was performed in London in 2005 at Drill Hall (now RADA Studios).
In an interesting coincidence relating to another “provenance sub-collection” of mine, the collector BCD is reportedly related to Cavafy (a cousin of a grandparent), and an “avid reader” of his poetry (Felch 2015: 2).
Review of the Collection:
Browsing Richard Plant’s collection – or reading about his collecting habits (and budget) as described by others – many collectors will find it quite approachable and to have a familiar quality.
There are many desirable types – RRC and Imperatorial denarii, large denomination Greek AR (dozens of Tetradrachms and Staters) and even a few AV Staters – but rarely in the highest states of preservation. Instead, the best coins tend to be “only” in attractive condition and with nice eye appeal or old collection toning.
One gets the sense of a collection built with decades of patience and scholarly interest, the many common, affordable types acquired through steady involvement in the hobby, and the few higher-quality prizes selected individually, with studied deliberation. Compared to most collections – including those built over many fewer decades (!) – duplication is notably infrequent among his better coins.
Among the Greeks, especially, one can read a purpose: a desire to find, within the limits of a reasonable budget, a modest number of lovely examples that nonetheless do justice to the great artistic, geographic, historical, and, of course, linguistic expanse of Classical and Hellenistic types. He included a special emphasis on the Macedonians and successor kingdoms, but touching upon, in only dozens of coins, Sicily, Magna Graecia, and Northern and Central Greece and the Peloponnese.
There are large piles of hefty early Imperial bronzes, and varied groups of respectable Republican and Imperatorial denarii, including popular types such as Odysseus and Argos, the equestrian reverses of Crepusius and Marcius Philippus, and at least a pair of Julius Caesar.
Looking at this collection as a whole, it is easy to recognize one’s own collection in the piles of RIC bronzes and billon and denarii with “honest wear,” but very difficult not to feel a pang of regret when looking over the better coins, and think to oneself, “If only I were a bit more patient and deliberative, perhaps studied a bit more, even on my budget – that’s what my collection could look like!” Then again, no reason one cannot follow that example moving forward.