Numismatic books come with all kinds of endorsements and recommendations. Some are printed on a “What Readers Are Saying” page in the front. For example, the Cherrypickers’ Guide to Rare Die Varieties has endorsements from Mark Borckardt, Jeff Garrett, Dr. Richard Doty, and other well-known numismatists. Len Augsburger, president of the Liberty Seated Collectors Club, […]
Notes Published: It takes an entire hobby community to make the Red Book
As you read these words, a crack team of more than 100 numismatic experts is hard at work developing the 77th edition of R.S. Yeoman’s Guide Book of United States Coins. They hail from every nook of the nation—big cities and small towns, north, south, east, and west—and from every corner and calling within the […]
Notes Published: Plain or fancy, take your pick of the Whitman Numismatic Journal
A month ago in this column I wrote an “introduction” to the Whitman Numismatic Journal—actually, a description of how the Journal was introduced in January 1964, at a time when coin-collecting was booming in the United States. That article sparked a lot of feedback from readers. It seems the Whitman Numismatic Journal has many fans, […]
Notes Published: The hobby celebrates 15 years of David W. Lange’s Coin Collecting Boards of the 1930s & 1940s
In 2007, a numismatic classic was published: Coin Collecting Boards of the 1930s & 1940s: A Complete History, Catalog and Value Guide, by David W. Lange, Pennyboard Press. If you know Lange and his work, you won’t be surprised that his book is an amazing piece of scholarship. 15 years later it remains the standard […]
Notes Published: Introducing the Whitman Numismatic Journal
Whitman Publishing introduced a new hobby publication in January 1964—the Whitman Numismatic Journal, subtitled “A Monthly Supplement to All Whitman Standard Reference Books.” R.S. Yeoman, creator of the hugely popular Guide Book of United States Coins (the hobby’s “Red Book”), was its editor-in-chief. His managing editor was Kenneth E. Bressett, who was several years into […]
Notes Published: Establishing your name as a writer
Edgar Allan Poe, in his “Letter to B—” (July 1836), wrote about literary judgment, and whether “a good critique on a poem may be written by one who is no poet himself.” Poe, well respected during his lifetime and today widely regarded as one of America’s greatest writers, was skeptical. A “fool” (in his words) […]
Notes Published: Cataloging modern silver dollars—where to put those 2021 coins?
If you’ve read Kenneth Bressett’s history of the Guide Book of United States Coins—the recently published A Penny Saved: R.S. Yeoman and His Remarkable Red Book—you know that the Red Book’s editors have always taken its content very seriously. The goal is to catalog hundreds of different coin types, spanning centuries of American history, in […]
Notes Published: Collecting the numismatic books of the 1800s
As robust as the world of modern American numismatic publishing is, it’s good to take a look backward from time to time. Numismatists love to study and collect the hobby’s foundational books, auction catalogs, and periodicals of the 19th century. There’s an entire “industry” (if that’s the right word) devoted to buying, selling, and preserving […]
Notes Published: The 2022 State of the Rare Coin Market, on the books
Book sales in the United States were very strong in 2021, according to data from NPD BookScan, which reports on about 85 percent of print sales nationwide (through all major retailers including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Target, Walmart, and independent bookstores). This follows an upward trend we’ve seen over the course of the COVID […]
Notes Published: Finding coins in a book about cities
The other day I was reading Monica L. Smith’s Cities: The First 6,000 Years. Dr. Smith is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at UCLA, and director of the South Asian Archaeology Laboratory at the university’s Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. Her book is, as Science magazine puts it, “a compelling journey from city life […]
