Coin Collecting Reference Books

That is a nice site - I will bookmark it. Thanks.

Fantastic!

I was looking for a list of literature on Spanish Colonials. Thank you, swamperbob!

~Roman

thekidcollector - there is good news and bad news regarding your question. First the good news, the reference books do exist. But there is bad news too - they are not in the exhaustive detail that we expect in modern numismatic references, they are rather rare and are written in German. I will hunt for names, but you are talking some very expensive books. The Krause series are the best overviews of the series that are reasonably priced. I would check the Overstock distributor's for last year's editions if I were you. But even new from Amazon they are less than bookstore price.

thekidcollector - If you have seen the German editions already - you have likely seen the same books that I was referring to. The other drawback to the books I have seen is that the illustrations of the coins are only line drawings. Older coin references have technological limitations when it comes to illustrations. Photographs are a relatively recent (and costly) innovation - etchings and steel plates or woodcuts were as good as they had. They were limited by the skill of the illustrator. Also these books were produced in an era when counterfeiting for numismatic deception had not yet reached the level of compitence seen in today's forgeries. Electrotypes produced high quality replicas but they were not made to decieve collectors but rather they substituted for rare items and were a legitimate part of the hobby.

The one exception that I am aware of with regard to the method of illustration of a pre-Civil War book was Riddell's book on counterfeits. Perhaps that is part of what drew me into the subject of forgery. Riddell was an innovative illustrator. He needed to portray exactly what the counterfeit coins looked like so he had electrotypes made of the coins. He produced a negative of each coin in type metal so they could set the book and get an accurate picture of the coin. Then he melted the original coins. The pictures are good enough to allow absolute identification of most examples. They even show die chips.

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While this image may not be up to present standards it is by far the best you see in the 1840s.

"Have you anything on 18th century French coinage? (preferably in English?)
Ætheling"

For French ecus, George Sobin's 1974 book "The Silver Crown of France 1641-1973" is a must-have. It has tables of estimated rarity and valuations for every date and mint mark -- based on his careful analysis of price lists and auction catalogs over many years -- which are extremely useful. If you can find it, also buy the auction catalog of his collection, "The George Sobin Collection of French Ecus, March 7th & 8th, 1977" presented by Joseph Lepczyk. I was lucky enough to get a copy on ebay signed by Sobin with prices realized.

Bob, is there a specialized reference covering War of Independence period? I think Dan Canaparo is working on something, but I don't know when it will be out.

~Roman

Thanks :) I'll just start documenting everything I learn from the coins I acquire and if noone puts any reference out in 5-10 years - I'll have to do it myself.