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The COIN COLLECTING Books You NEED to SUCCEED
Jan 23, 2020
Most of the titles discussed in this video can be purchased through CoinWeek Supplies by using the following links. THE OFFICIAL RED BOOK: A GUIDE BOOK OF UNITED STATES COINS 2020 (MEGA RED DELUXE EDITION). $27.48 (regularly $50) https://supplies.coinweek.com/index.php?p=product&id=8832 THE OFFICIAL RED BOOK: A GUIDE BOOK OF UNITED STATES COINS 2020. Starting at $8.78 https://supplies.coinweek.com/index.php?p=product&id=8831 THE OFFICIAL RED BOOK: A GUIDE BOOK OF UNITED STATES PAPER MONEY. Under $20 https://supplies.coinweek.com/index.php?p=product&id=1315 PAPER MONEY OF THE UNITED STATES. $40 - $60 https://supplies.coinweek.com/index.php?p=product&id=1320 STANDARD CATALOG OF WORLD COINS, 1901-2000. Over $50 https://supplies.coinweek.com/index.php?p=product&id=268 WHITMAN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MEXICAN MONEY -- VOLUME 1 https://supplies.coinweek.com/index.php?p=product&id=4171
View Video Transcript
0:03
what's good everybody I don't know if I'd say that's a coin Channel how are you doing everybody this is Charles
0:09
Morgan from coin week and we've been streaming this week a few topics that I
0:14
think are important for collectors that is how to properly store your coins and
0:19
the best available products on the market how to magnify your clients
0:25
looking at some of the most popular and highest quality loops and magnifiers on
0:32
the market today I will finish this short series of streams with a video
0:41
about essential reference books or claim collecting books that you need in order
0:47
to succeed in the Hobby there is no perfect book in the coin collecting
0:52
market and I'm gonna give you an honest breakdown of my feelings related to each
1:02
of these books some of the books may have a slight criticism to them but I
1:07
will not present any of these to you if I did not recommend that you purchase them coin week has a series of essays
1:16
about books as they've come out into the market that we've published in the last few years called first read I think even
1:23
our editor's choice which is very seldom given to books has been given to books
1:29
where we do find things here or there that we find not not you know to our
1:36
standards there are some books that have come out in news matic marketplace that we have not reviewed and and chose not
1:44
to review because we didn't we didn't want to we didn't want to put anything out about them because we felt that they
1:50
weren't up to any of our standards and we wouldn't want to recommend our readers to invest the money and time to
1:58
read these books now that doesn't mean that every book that hasn't been published or written about on quayne week is a bad book it's just we've run
2:04
into situations where we're like you know don't like this book at all we're not gonna we're not going to promote it so so with that said
2:12
any criticism I make for any of these books or the way these books are put together is meant to just be a light
2:18
critique it's not a damning statement I wouldn't show you a book if I didn't
2:23
think you should buy it or read it or put in your collection but I do want to make you aware of things that I see and
2:29
these are my own personal feelings they don't reflect the staff the staff could have their own opinions and there are
2:34
certainly not critiques that the writers most of these writers and publishers do as much as they can with the limited
2:41
amount of time and money that is available to put these reference books together so having put all of that out
2:47
in the open and if there's any biases or things that I have that might seem like
2:54
a conflict of interest I will let you know I have been involved in the publication of a few of these books either behind the scenes or you know
3:02
through some sort of collaboration with the authors or the editors so the first
3:07
one is the essential book this is the book that got me started into coins this is the the red book the guidebook the
3:15
United States coins originally published in 1947 by RS yeoman published by Whitman every year
3:22
since this is the 73rd edition my first red book was purchased for me by my
3:28
grandmother Ruth and it was the 1986 Edition this is actually one you can't
3:35
get in stores because this is the presentation Edition given to the red book contributors of which I have been
3:43
off and on for the past five or six years it was signed by Jeff Jarrett and you know every contributor gets one
3:49
every year it's sort of the badge of honor you get for contributing the red book now the red book is an all-in-one
3:56
type of book it has prices of course it has copious illustrations and very basic
4:05
although more more of a detail than you would think descriptions of pretty much every coin
4:13
colonial coin and many medals and tokens struck in the United States since the
4:22
since the English colonization began and my only criticism with the red book
4:28
if you're an advanced or sophisticated collector is the read books pricing us us does not accurately reflect the
4:37
certified coin market if you want a a red book that is larger and more
4:43
sophisticated and the last few years Whitman has put out this monster called
4:49
the mega red book no you can see how big this thing is it's the telephone book size thing it's it's very large has a
4:57
retail price of about fifty dollars although and our our website and some
5:03
other places you can get it for less than that the thing about the mega red book is that the photographs of the
5:10
coins are larger and the detailed
5:15
information about them is as expanded you see an expanded grading information
5:28
and this information is not precise to any particular grade you would see in
5:34
the certified market for instance for the 1834 crosslet for gold coin here the
5:43
five dollar half ago their grades explained au 50 53 55 and 58 in one
5:53
paragraph and you're basically given you
5:59
know a sliding interpretation of what these grades are and if you're buying a coin that the price can go from four
6:07
thousand to ten thousand dollars in that scale I think you'd probably want something more detailed than what can be
6:14
fit in this book considering it it covers the same quantity of coins that
6:20
the the regular red book covers but in a more expanded format as far as the
6:26
pricing is concerned the pricing here is slightly expanded and does take into
6:32
account some options which they give you a precise auction data for below the
6:37
price grid the red book is not to be mistaken for a
6:44
quick trip to the heritage or Stax powers auction prices realized list or
6:52
maybe PCGS coin facts or ng C's coin
6:59
Explorer to see what the different online auctions publicly realized prices
7:05
for points and the different certified grades have been I recommend more than
7:11
anything before you enter into the coin market if price is a consideration that
7:16
you're very very specific about that you look at online resources before you go
7:22
to print however online resource is only telling part of this story and and I think that
7:28
a combination of your online resource and these you know veritable forests
7:36
fonts of information is is how you want to approach collecting coins now from coins
7:43
to paper money we go and there are two resources I use primarily for US coins
7:52
there's a simple one is Whitman's the United States paper money you can find
7:58
this and pretty much any bookstore that has a hobby section for coins or your coin local coin dealer maintenance stock
8:05
these in if you have a brick-and-mortar retail shop I recommend you you pick up a case of these so you can inform your
8:11
customers and and hopefully that means you sell more currency this is this is affordable it's an under $20.00 book it
8:18
has copious illustrations good quality illustrations probably the largest
8:23
illustrations of paper money of the two books I'm going to reference and you get
8:29
you know pricing table some printing quantities and that's fairly well laid
8:35
out it is arthur and ira freiburg are responsible for it but they also have
8:41
and i actually use this more more often they have an expanded version of this
8:48
which is much more detailed there's a hardback and a soft back in you're paying between I think 40 and $60
8:55
this is the hardback it is the $60 version but I find that it's a little more durable again you get that the
9:02
photographs lecture the same information but I do feel like the way this is laid out is is as more more authoritative and
9:11
there's more room for them to expand some of the information so these are the two books for currency and they they do
9:17
have a section of four confederate notes they have you know small size large size
9:24
national bank notes and the the book starts with the colonial currency and
9:31
there's a section on that although that's not as well illustrated as I would like it to be but anyway those are
9:37
the two books on paper money that I recommend that you use and they have become they have been very helpful for
9:43
us as we've written a number of articles on paper money over the years for coin week now another important facet of coin
9:51
collecting and I think it's one of the main pillars of coin collecting is to understand the fundamentals of clean
9:59
grading it's a it's a sad it's a sad statement I think I'm the hobby that
10:05
most collectors have have not kept up their precise understanding of coin
10:11
grading and have allowed the industry to sort of use where the market is to shift
10:18
the definitions of certain grades this we call coin inflation or grade
10:23
inflation I guess and it is run rampant in the coin industry for the last 20 or 30 years it was a gradual a slide from M
10:31
s65 being the coveted gem grade it's an MS 65 today being a middling grade where
10:38
the better grade points are grading six seven seven plus eight and so this this
10:43
shift has meant that the differences between coins and the lower tiers of the
10:49
mint state spectrum up to Mint has become one nebulous and more interchangeable and where Jimmy coin in
10:57
the early 80s would have you know graded ms 65 when it was offered at an auction
11:03
today would be like a 7 plus or an 8 or the CAC sticker even so we've seen it we've seen a complete redefinition of
11:10
these grades so I think understanding the grades is important especially if
11:16
you collect circulating coins I find to be honest that when you're grading a
11:21
mints that coin a mint state coin you're looking at you know strike and luster you're looking at originality the
11:28
surfaces you're looking for hits and dings how strong the coin was you know
11:33
how nice the planchette was and how the defects in the planchette are covered up by the strike and but when you get into
11:40
the circulated grades you're talking about which details can be omitted where is the typical wear pattern and what
11:48
kind of damage naturally occurs to a coin when it circulates what color is a coin take on as it circulates like how
11:55
can you tell it's been cleaned and then just read to them later all of these things are very important and I find
12:01
that it's even more important to know these factors for collecting than it is
12:06
the midstate side of the spectrum because most of the raw points you're
12:12
gonna find where you're going to cherry pick those varieties or you're gonna get those those those circulation poles if
12:18
they even exist anymore you know a couple old bu rolls of silver coins it's
12:25
easy to figure out how many hits are there but once you start getting into you know the circulated grades like
12:30
knowing which ones are the you know extra fine extra fine 45 very fine very good that these are these are harder and
12:38
I've even heard from professional graders at the services that much harder
12:43
to grade circulating coins in mint state a lot of guys don't have the time to sit
12:48
there and like split hairs over you know okay there's there's 80% of the wheat stocks are left on this 99s VDB and they
12:56
just don't have the they don't have the time and and certainly they're not getting the preponderance of the coins
13:02
that they're grading are in that state so and I'm gonna go over these these books in the order of my precedent the
13:09
precedents that I feel they deserve from the one passable to outstanding and so
13:18
the first one I look at here which I I think is passable and as a grading book I'm much more interested in the
13:24
perspective than actually how it comes across this is a cue David Bowers grading coins by photographs second
13:32
edition published by Whitman it's a spiral back book so it's fairly sturdy and what Bowers does in the way he
13:39
presents as he breaks things down series by series there's information about sharpness and the history and then he
13:46
goes coin by coin through the different grades starting with a mint state 6270
13:55
remember I say that's that's a very important spectrum but you only get in one paragraph this is why I'm going from
14:01
this book to others I think that these short changes some of these grades and
14:07
focuses primarily on the lower circulated grade so that's one of the places you might want to definitely care
14:13
about let me give you an example hopefully this doesn't violate fair use but for very first shield nickel for
14:19
instance for very fine obverse the frame details and leaves show more wear with
14:24
much leaf detail gone the shield stripes show more wear and some vertical lines will begin to blend
14:30
together and of course you read this as a progression you know and so you follow that progression and then you're within
14:37
ten points two grades and that's that's what you get for two grades the photographs are fairly good they are
14:44
they look like they're about coin size so if you're used to looking at going
14:49
through a loop of courses so SAC dollars not coin size that's a certainly not plain size but anyway so I would say I
14:55
would give this this as a passable coin grading book but a Bowers perspective is interesting and as the Dean of
15:03
numismatics it's always worth checking out what he has to say moving on something a little bit better in this
15:08
again edited by Ken Brissette who's now retired but also influenced by Bowers
15:15
who has written a narrative another women title this is the the AA's the
15:22
official American Numismatic Association grading standards for United States coin this is a another spiral edition and
15:30
here you see the breakdown grade by grade this page it's proof
15:38
sixty five sixty four sixty three sixty two you thought they talked about natural coloration of coins deceptive
15:44
practices things you need to look at this is really written as a as a technical guide with some good consumer
15:52
advocacy points brought to bear here I'm gonna go back if I can to this shield
15:58
nickel that we were talking about in the bowers book and I want to read to you how they treat the same issue the same
16:06
grade we are looking at the extra fine no no we're looking at very fine thirty
16:11
to twenty and they write very fine thirty being choice very fine twenty
16:17
being typical you see the narratives actually smaller but I believe the coin photographs are larger for very fine 30
16:25
they say leaves showed nearly full detail vertical lines of shield are worn
16:30
but sharp and separated some horizontal lines and shield are missing so that's
16:36
in my opinion more concise a little easier to follow the pictures are larger
16:43
and again all of the front matter of this book to tell you about I appeal
16:49
deceptive practices things you need to look out for when grading coins I think
16:54
it's invaluable and this goes to the entire us series and so that is a that
16:59
is another book I think this book retails for $20 so roughly the same price and you can again you can usually
17:04
find them online a little cheaper including at our supply site the best in my opinion
17:10
grading book on the market it is also the most expensive but it's not like
17:15
hugely expensive it's about double the price and it's published by to our friends at coin world this is coin world's making the grade
17:22
Beth Dicer edited this book this is the third edition where coin world's making
17:27
the grade makes great strides over what the other publications did is that the
17:33
coin photographs are much larger okay they break down color for the copper
17:41
coins when it comes to that that shield nickel we're talking about I'm going to read what they have to say
17:47
so you can see so we're going to talk about the same coin coin after coin this is the page with the shield nickels okay
17:54
so for very fine 20 the coin World Book says moderate wear is evident but more
17:59
details of merging on design elements offers more details show in shield and
18:04
frame cross and laurel leaves letters on motto are bolder reverse at numeral 5 is
18:10
bolder and more details of stars evident letters and legends are distinct so you see in that not only are they showing
18:17
you where to look for precise descriptions the coin of photograph is
18:24
larger and you can see in that photograph exactly the things they're talking about I think they did a great
18:30
job with this book there's a lot of there's a lot of history about the different coin series and then they are
18:36
showing the grades like for this a flowing hair 1/2 nine page MMS 60 63 64
18:42
and 65 now they're not gonna have all the eccentric grades you know moment
18:47
plus grades or anything like that but it's very good another feature of the book I like is they have these coin
18:54
where heat maps they're in full-color and they show where the typical wear
19:00
patterns form on these coins as they circulate I think this is very important as you're learning how to grade because
19:06
you want to look for the problem areas first especially if you're trying to tell the difference between circulated and uncirculated coin so there is the
19:14
the coin rulebook I think it retails for $40 you get it slightly cheaper online and on our site but that's the retail
19:20
price now the best coin book does not compare in my opinion to a free product
19:28
that you can get and that is the PCGS of photo grading app that they offer Phil
19:36
Arnold at PCGS is one of the finer photographers of numismatic products
19:42
working in the industry so you get to see how only his photography but you also get to see how coins are graded by
19:49
PCGS and standards PCGS and things you see are both top two your grading services they have their own eccentric
19:56
standards that are site that are slightly different at each company and so you get to see how P suggests
20:03
views the coin grading spectrum and they show they step it up with great
20:08
photography and it's free now I would look at that I would look at these I
20:13
would take in all the information they're trying to give you because there's a years and years of experience here so sometimes the best information
20:20
doesn't cost you anything like like coin we Becca doesn't cost anything but but yeah but seriously folks these are the
20:27
books that I would have in my collection or I have in my bookshelf that I would use and another thing of Frederick
20:34
Brandt points out and his comedy just made us that uh older auction catalogues
20:39
and current auction catalogues couldn't agree more the best purchase you'll ever make is to go on ebay after an auctions
20:46
done and buy a major auction catalog for pennies on the dollar and read everything in there and see the beautiful photographs and see and see
20:53
what's going on because for the bigger points that they'll have a full-page photographs now let's move on the world
20:58
coins another great segment in the market and I'm going to explain what's
21:03
going on with Krause II a little bit Krause II for years has made these robust catalogs covering world coins
21:12
from the 17th century to the present this is the first the seventh edition of
21:19
the 1601 to 1700 book when Hubert and I were writing our book that's coming out
21:25
in about a month and a half on modern world coins you know this this book was a an essential element the world coins
21:32
1901 to 2000 and and the thing about these books is they have pretty much
21:40
defined world coin collecting in the American market for generations
21:46
but if you look at the size of these books you're looking at tens of
21:52
thousands of pages okay and right now it
21:58
used to be George Kuh Hodge who has left Krause II before they were sold and now
22:04
I'm not sure if it's Thomas Michael or who the who staffing these books anymore
22:10
as they've been purchased by another publisher but one person and no number of contributors
22:17
is going to keep the pricing and this book consistent accurate and reflecting real-time pricing as as seen by
22:25
countless coin coin sellers across the globe countless auctions American
22:30
auctions European auctions Asian options it's just not possible and so if you look at these books as price guides
22:36
which is what they're kind of sold because you're you're sort of not getting a good price guide you're
22:42
getting a fantastic catalogue with I get a very has standardized system the
22:48
Krause numbering system you're getting pictures and a little bit of biographical information but if you're
22:54
serious specialist you're out of luck because there's there's far deeper writing and other things this is really
23:01
an overview if or if you get a coin you don't know what it is but you're like I think that's currency I think that's I
23:07
think that's a German state coin or whatever this is a great resource the only resource I would recommend for like
23:13
looking things up if you don't know what they are you have a general idea of the date it's for a price guide again you
23:19
have to go to auction catalogs you have to talk to knowledgeable dealers there is nothing in print that I can tell and
23:25
I'm the European market and on the US market that like satisfies my definition of accurate up-to-date scientific method
23:33
pricing for world coins getting a little deep into coins and I would say the
23:40
Whitman has put out a few good books for Canadian coins and for Mexican coins for
23:46
Mexican coins I recommend two books right now for the generalist and that is
23:53
Don Bailey and Louis Bailey's Whitman encyclopedia of Mexican money volumes 1
23:58
& 2 volume 2 is covers 1905 to date is
24:04
essentially structured like the red book but with Mexican coins of course Don
24:09
Bailey has passed away a few years ago but Mexican coins were his life's work
24:15
and there is no better reference in English probably not even in Spanish for Mexican coins than this getting into
24:23
paper money I think a great opportunity for collectors who want to bored of maybe collecting a coins that
24:31
they think they're too pricey or collecting us paper money a great affordable area to enter into full of
24:38
variety is modern world paper money here again don't go for the price guide
24:44
element but for catalog in a visual depiction Crossy standard catalog of world paper money and this is the 25th
24:51
edition I think this is the most recent there they're behind they're gonna probably skip a year I think before the
24:57
next ones come out but but this would be that the book I would buy of course for
25:03
variety hunters you have specialist books you know I recommend the cherry pickers and guide for for generalists or
25:09
just looking for modern coins I've asked them for a few times if they would consider not putting the classic coins
25:15
in the cherry pickers guide and just do modern coins so they can fit more I'm in there it's a very political process what
25:21
coins getting cherry pickers guide because they're weighing how much space they have there's new varieties that are found and they're trying to put
25:27
varieties in the book that gage collect your interest I think we're waiting for the next edition of Bill Feliz cherry
25:33
pickers guide and I think it could be lucky to find one in stock right now because most of last print run has sold
25:40
out and then if you want to get into some other series I think if you're collecting commemorative coins for
25:48
instance and this books probably out of print but you have the the Whitman Bauer series red book on commemorative coins
25:55
which is good for the someone getting into it if you want a little deeper information there is Anthony sweet X
26:01
encyclopedia of commemorative coins in the United States which is I think this is like 150 dollar book you might be
26:09
able to find this in this gym some of the corniest writing you'll ever see any
26:14
miss Maddocks mostly because walter brie but silver and gold commemorative coins buy sweet set can bring this was
26:21
published in the late 80s it was under first coin Vestas there's a lot of
26:27
really bogus pricing information but as far as the entertainment value and the
26:33
information about the commemorative coin programs you can get much of what you see it's Wyatt X and cyclopædia written
26:40
actually sir kind of more frivolous manner in the end the older reference and you can get you might even get this
26:47
in this book for like eight or ten dollars and it's full of information there's also how to print far out of
26:53
print that were said a much bigger volume of commemorative coins that he published I guess when he was with
26:58
powers of Marino another book recently that I think is really great if you
27:04
collect gold coins at the New Orleans Mint you know that winner has another standard reference document or is Doug
27:10
winner is probably one of the outside of the queue David Bower is probably the hardest-working coin dealer writers in
27:15
the industries he's he's the guy for crusty old gold classic ghost gold Doug winner is the guy who has most of the
27:22
information and has published it we published Doug's blogs all the time on Queen week but this is a great book that
27:28
came out recently the ACS copper grading book is you might have to go to the a CD
27:37
and copy they're probably very limited the ACC has maintained their grading
27:42
standards for about sixty or seventy years and and this book articulates it
27:48
to way much clearer than anything I've ever read before also this is a specialist book I mean we're talking probably around 100 dollars of this book
27:55
and then if you just can't get enough coins and you want to learn more about
28:00
the history you might want to find this book or a books of modern printing of this book this is numismatic art in
28:07
America it will explain a lot about why our coins throughout the years look the
28:12
way they look this is by Cornelius Vermeil a very notable very wealthy coin
28:17
collector who was active in the early and mid 20th century this is this was
28:24
basically written as a collegiate text again not for everybody but if you're really fascinated about the art and the
28:31
history of record the representation of Liberty and u.s. coins all the symbolism
28:36
and motif that you found on the classic coins that we all love for mule tackles that subject and then some in this book
28:43
it's really a cultural history of American coinage so to me this is based
28:49
these are the building blocks this is the this is the Lego set that you need to
28:54
consider if you're going into these different areas this is like these are the cornerstones after this you start
28:59
expanding based on your interest I love FAO points I have an FAO clean guide but that's not for everybody if you like
29:05
German coins there's some great German coin books out there if you are collecting certain periods there's great
29:11
books out there so never stop never stop learning and it never hesitates it's a
29:19
drop to drop that extra bit of money on a book to really kind of figure out do I
29:25
want to go in this direction what coins do I want why do I want them so even a hundred hundred fifty dollar book can
29:32
have such a fundamental impact on what you do for the rest of your coin collecting experience so most of the
29:40
authors who create these products are not making a profit and you know they're covering their cost there no they're not
29:46
even covering their time really to put this stuff together and so by supporting
29:51
numismatic authors you're supporting the perpetuation of knowledge you're supporting the growth of the coin
29:57
industry and who knows you may just completely revolutionize your approach
30:02
to coin collecting you may change it you may decide I never thought in a million years I'd want to collect Civil War
30:08
tokens but after eating this I can't get enough of them and that's the power and fly some of the writing that you'll see
30:14
learn how to grade learn how to identify coins and and once you have those two
30:21
things down you're off the races so have a good weekend everybody
30:26
I promise we got a podcast we're getting ready to record with Jeff Devlin he's
30:31
going to be calling me about an hour so we'll try to have that up for you tomorrow or Monday and we still have
30:38
cool coins that upload we had a little bit of problems with the production but we've got it fixed now so that's what I
30:43
got for you happy shopping happy reading happy collecting have a happy weekend
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