This blog post is part book review and part ramble about two conversation pieces in my collection.  Very soon after developing my main collecting interesting I found to understand the central coin of my collection I had to understand the coinage of Ethiopia.  I have a number of books on Ethiopia, its history; both social and economic, in my small personal library.  All are useful but, from a collecting perspective, there is one book that is a must own for Ethiopian Coinage:  Dennis Gill's "The Coinage of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Italian Somalia" Self-published 1991, ISBN 0 9627503 0 1.  This book is, as far as I know the only numismatic book covering Modern (predominantly 19th and 20th century) Ethiopia coins.  If you're a foreign coin collector it's a book well worth looking out for.   I went hunting for this book, and ended up paying more than was necessary for it. From memory I paid US$200.00. When I got the book I really appreciated the original authors invoice being included showing I had paid ten times the original sale price. Soon after purchasing it (about 8 years ago) another collector told me I could have written to the author and got it considerably cheaper.   I have no idea if that is still possible; Dennis Gill in the book lists his address as follows: