Penny Whimsy

Personally I like the 1958 images better than the 76 edition. As mentioned the images in the 1990 are BAD. The images in the second printing of the 1990 (dark brown leathette cover) are better than those in the first printing (tan leathette cover). The first 1990 printing was HORRIBLE, nice black circles. Any of the editions are usable except the 1990 which is too bad because it is the only one that had pictures of varieties discovered since 1958.

There were also editions in 1965 (two versions) and 1981.

Ok so it is between the 1958 version and the 1976 version. What to do, what to do?

Conder, thank you again for your helpful considerations in choosing this book. I ended up ordering the Quarterman 1976 version based on the advice of a local friend. I was able to find it on Amazon for a fair price and the ability to turn Amex points into Amazon dollars made the decision even easier. My book should arrive on Friday!

One important thing to know about the Breen Early cent book is that there are four image errors in the book
The image of S-21 is actually S-20
S-107 is actually S-108
S-179 is actually S-175
and S-183 is actually S-182

Two of those are bad. S-107 is very rare and the obv die is only used on that variety. S-183 is also very rare and difficult to tell from the much more common S-184.

Yes I am aware there are some quite large errors in Breen's Large Cent book, but - the history of minting is fantastic, somewhere I saw the errata page online, I need to find it and make a copy to put in the book as well. It may have been in one of the Penny Wise issues contained on the EAC CD I received with my membership.

I have two copies of it. It is a good book. About the only difference between it and Penny Whimsy are some changes in the listed condition censuses, some rarity changes, and maybe the addition of a variety or two. The plates are fair, inmy opinion not as good as the 1958 plates, about on par with the 1976 plates. Maybe not quite as good as the 76. $20 was a good price. The pricehas gone down but my first copy cost me $75.

Great buy Jerry! I paid $45.00 for my copy of the 1976 edition off ebay two years ago. I see them sell for more than $50 all the time, so you done good on that one, even with the tape damage.

For high quality it has already been mentioned earlier in this post, the Dan Brown four part (Goldberg) collection is pretty impressive, also the Wes Rasmussen auction catalog (Heritage) is pretty good. I'm still looking for a copy of the Walter Husak sale catalog (Heritage) with no luck this year so far. But the auction catalogs will have some of the best photos of some incredibly rare coins. Since they are made to entice bids and sell coins their photography is top notch.

The Breen Large Cent Encyclopedia is still very good as I delve into it more. Expensive? Yes. Errors? Yes. But an incredible amount of good information. For a free reading copy on line see the PCGS link: http://www.pcgs.com/books/ I've mentioned this link in several posts previously, and I use it all the time, great of PCGS to get the rights to so many fine numismatic books for public use online.

The best Large Cent book IMO is only for the middle dates 1816-1839 it's called "The Cent book 1816-1839" appropriately enough it is authored by John D. Wright, awesome photos and great explanations. Next best is the Noyes series the two earlier books are only B&W photos 1793-1814 and 1816-1839 but they are expensive, the pair sells for around $225+ usually, his next books published after cover 1793-1794 and 1795-1797 both with color plates. His latest volumes 5 & 6 cover 1816-1857 also in color. and all expensive around $200/volume.

The Early American Copper club has a list of all these and some more on their resources link on the main page http://www.eacs.org/books.html

Now get to reading everyone!

Hey Jerryc39 if you haven't already join the EAC (info at their website) http://www.eacs.org the Pennywise magazine and back issue archive alone is worth a years subscription!