The winner of the 2020 International Association of Professional Numismatists (IAPN) Book Prize was crowned during the organization’s recent General Assembly.
Ottawa numismatist Chris Faulkner’s 2019 book, Imperial Designs, was among the 16 nominees competing for the honour at the much-delayed General Assembly, originally scheduled for May 2020 in France but postponed until this month and held via Zoom due to the pandemic.
The “clear winner,” according to IAPN publication committee chair Peter Preston-Morley, was Stockholm numismatist Roberto Delzanno and his self-published 450-page catalogue, Sveriges Guldmynt 1512-2020.
In second place was François Joyaux’s 200-page book, Monnaies Impériales d’Annam, published by Editions V. Gadoury in Monaco.
A groundbreaking two-volume study by British scholar Hodge Malek, Arab-Sasanian Numismatic History during the Early Islamic Period in Iran and Iraq, took third place. The U.K.-based Royal Numismatic Society published Malek’s book.
Delzanno will receive the Book Prize medal and certificate plus a monetary prize of 1,000 Swiss francs (about $1,375 Cdn.) at a future date.
All books nominated for the 2020 Book Prize were published in 2019.
The IAPN launched the literature-focused award in 1982.