Mr. Kabaklarlı undertook the classification of copper coins after collecting them for over 35 years. He has produced a valuable contribution to Ottoman Numismatics, completed at the end of 1997 and now released, in a limited edition for the Uşak Archaeological Museum to whom he has donated his collection of coins. He anticipates that many more specimens of Ottoman copper coins will be discovered after the publication of his work. 

   It is a welcome guide to this series of Ottoman coins which has more or less been ignored by compilers of catalogues in the past (Lane-Poole, 1883; and Edhem, 1915 and others). He has considered-more than three thousand coins of which 1200 have been accurately drawn (many in enlargement), together with 955 coin photos on 67 plates. The reader will find it easy to study the coin inscriptions of mint place names classified under the reigns of twenty-seven rulers. The weights and sizes of each specimen considered, and where necessary transliterations of some legends. (In this regard he explains the misunderstood attributions of Edhem's coins Nos. 1061 and 1348 which have perplexed many numismatists for eighty years). 

   Apart from his own spectacular collection he has catalogued hundred of specimens held in sixteen museums and nineteen private collections in England, France, Germany, Denmark, Israel, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria, U.S.A. and in his own country. 

   In his foreword he discusses the method of minting, distribution and circulation of copper coins, and adds comments about the ornamental motifs which appear on one side of many of the specimens described. A list of Abbreviations and Bibliography of works consulted is included and three maps in colour are added at the end of the volume.

It is noteworthy that another Series of Ottoman copper coins called “Nakişli” (Ornamental) which have ornaments on obverse and reverse without legends are not within the scope of this work. Therefore, Ölçer's important work which illustrates such coins (classified into five groups on pages 96-160) is a necessary supplement to use, as are the supplementary plates 88-96 in Nuri Pere’s catalogue which illustrate the designs which are attributed to the twenty-three sultans who permitted such coin issues.

In this writer's opinion the work by Kabaklarli will no doubt be the standard reference on the subject in the future and be an essential reference volume for Curators of Museums holding Islamic coins and for the Directors at Archaeological sites in which such copper coins being discovered constantly. 

The author is President of the Uşaklılar Educational and Cultural Foundation to whom he has allocated the income from tee sale of his book.

(Numismatic International August 1999)