Adrian Room.  Routledge & Kegan Paul. London, 1987, HB Black cloth with gilt-titled spine.  vi + 250 pages. A few b&w illustrations in the text.  150 x 230mm.  The dj yellowed but otherwise, the contents are good to very good with a nice tight binding.

Coins involve all of us, not just numismatists, and there is a constant popular interest in their names of nearly 1000 coin denominations worldwide, including both historic names, such as angel, doubloon, leopard and scotus, and current names, such as dollar, franc, rupee and yen. Many well-known nicknames of coins are also given, such as bob, crookie, Iaurel and tanner. Several coin names are inter-related, such as the dollar and the thaler, the ecu and the scudo, the dinar and the denarius, and such names are fully cross-referenced in the book, enabling readers to trace the genesis of a particular name. In addition, the dictionary has two extensive appendices, in which related names (portrait, inscription, value, colour and so on) and by their linguistic' family', so that all the crown, dollar, cent names, etc., are grouped together.
The entries themselves are presented in a readable narrative style aimed just as much at the interested amateur as at the professional coin collector, and the book is illustrated with pictures of coins with interesting names, enabling readers to see for themselves the actual feature that produced a name.
The dictionary has an introduction explaining the importance and continuing significance of coin names the world over, and concludes with a select bibliography on the subject. A glossary of numismatic terms used in the text is also provided for the benefit of the general reader.