An annotated book provides access to the informal discernments of one who has shared the
same interests as the reader. The annotations are of particular value if their author was
knowledgeable in the subject under review. Robert Kerr was one such person, having had a
working relationship over an extended period with the National collection of Scottish coins.
His annotations in the seminal text on Scottish numismatics may therefore be of interest to
students of the series.
I have endeavoured to organise Kerr’s jottings in a compact and accessible format. Quite
apart from their value as commentary and expansion of the text, they are evidence of the
curatorial oversights of a former age.
The annotations of Robert Kerr in a copy of The Coinage of Scotland by Edward Burns – David Rampling
BNS Research Blog 
I am very pleased that David Rampling has put on record Robert Kerr’s annotations in his copy of Burns, for Robert Kerr was a proper scholar and a careful student of the Scottish coinage. I would just like to point out that Robert Kerr’s post during his working career, as Curator of Art (which included curating the coin collection), was at the Royal Scottish Museum – not amalgamated with the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland until 1985 – and that the time during which he took an interest in the Scottish coinage fell into two periods, the first at the Royal Scottish Museum until his retirement in 1954, and the second helping out at the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland between 1954 and his death in 1967 (not 1973).
Hello Hugh. Many thanks for your clarifying commentary, and the correction regarding Kerr’s year of death. I had the correct year in the footnote but somehow missed this mistake in the text.
Kerr’s correct year of death has now been corrected in the article.