The books by John S. Davenport are to crowns and thalers what the Krause Standard Catalogue is to world coins. There are eight volumes in total covering the entire history of thalers, guldiners, crowns, and other dollar-sized coins from Europe. Four volumes cover Europe outside modern Germany's borders, and four more cover the vast thaler coinages inside it. Additional books cover crowns from beyond Europe, and a single large-sized book handles coins physically larger than the standard 38-44mm "crown" size.
Despite their age there have been few attempts to create a revised or updated set of the books, a testament to the remarkable efforts and thoroughness of Mr. Davenport. He traveled extensively in compiling his information in addition to combing through numerous reference works. For strictly medieval coin collectors, and even some modern world coin collectors, the books are probably either overkill or otherwise unnecessary. For thaler and crown collectors, they are indispensible. In addition to their own numbering, Krause Publications has been listing the Davenport number also on many older thalers and crowns in their "Standard Catalogues".
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