What Resource(S) Do Use To Learn About Coins?

My primary references are still my ink-on-dead-trees printed catalogues. The Internet is secondary, except for those coinage series I don't have a book for yet. I'm also a member of two coin clubs and have learned a great deal from there, especially about exonumia.


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I think it depends on what you collect Ben. The three main studies for my interest were written in 1918, 1977 and 1984.

Yes, the first two are now available online (or as pdfs), but I'm afraid I still prefer print. You can't easily compare three pages of illustrations with a pdf, whereas a book, well, you just stick a finger between the pages you want and flick back and forth! I make notes in my books .. where I've seen a coin, who now owns it.

And some books are still not available electronically, my contacts aren't online 24 hours a day (and I don't always want to suggest to them I'm interested in a particular coin!) and filtered? Yes. But that can be both a good thing (avoiding irrelevant material) but also bad (in that you may never read that impostant detail everyone since has overlooked)!

I primarily use the internet. It is a nice free source to see what is out there.

When I realize I am interested in a particular subsection of collecting, I have pursued books or reference catalogs.

But if it were not for the internet, I would not have been exposed to those subsets in the first place.

It helps if there is a widely accepted reference book, and if it is reasonably priced. Unfortunately a lot of numismatic literature is out of print and/or expensive.