An Iron Age coin bibliography
There are two excellent introductions to the whole of Celtic coinage, both British and continental, which are still widely available. They are:
D. Allen (ed. D. Nash), 1980: The coins of the ancient Celts (Edinburgh University Press, ISBN 0852243715)
D. Nash, 1987: Coinage in the Celtic world (Seaby, ISBN 0900652853).
Though now out of print, Derek Allen's An introduction to Celtic coinage (1978) is also a useful place to start.
For British coinage in particular, the most convenient introduction is Philip de Jersey's:
Celtic coinage in Britain (Shire Publications, 1996, ISBN 0747803250).
The most popular catalogue of British Celtic is:
R. D. Van Arsdell (Spink, 1989), Celtic coinage of Britain (ISBN 0907605249).
The most important, recent catalogue is:
British Iron Age coins in the British Museum (British Museum Press, 1996, ISBN 0714108766) by Richard Hobbs.
A very different and at times controversial approach is provided by John Creighton in Coins and power in late Iron Age Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2000, ISBN 0521772079).
Also well worth searching out is Celtic coinage: Britain and beyond , edited by Melinda Mays (Oxford, 1992, ISBN 0860547329). This includes valuable papers on the technology of coin production and the interpretation of Celtic coinage, as well as more specific regional studies.
Much of the most recent research is not available in book form, but is hidden away in a variety of journals. Click here for a list of most of the books and papers published on British Celtic coinage since 1936, the year when Derek Allen published his first paper on the subject - and arguably the start of the modern era of Celtic coin studies in Britain. This list will be regularly updated as new material is published, and if you spot any errors or omissions I would be pleased to hear about them. If you would like more details on any of these publications, or more specific suggestions for reading, why not just e-mail me ?
