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 Replies: 10 / Views: 2,143 |
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Pillar of the Community
2087 Posts |
This is a rant it comes of absolute frustration with some of my recent coin book purchases. It may well be my style of collecting, perhaps I am just an old codger who just isn't up to the state of play these days. The coins in my collection tell a story, its what makes coin collecting for me exciting. So when I look at new, to me, coins I want information that tells me the story of the coin. Recently I purchased two books. One a hard cover cost150.00 and after reading it I think its not even worth 2.00. I won't name the book, the Author has put a lot of work into it and the catalog section is probably the best available. However to get me to buy the coins I want to be able make my own assessments of how important the varieties are. Yes a coin may be rare but I am not interested if there isn't a substantive background story to that rarity. This is where that book really fell down. The first half of the book purported to tell the story, but it was so disconnected. One section was just appeared to have been parachuted in and had no logical connection to the coin the book was about. I still have no idea after a week of separate research what the connection between the subject of that section and the coin is.
Today I get another book Its on a coin type I know little about( that's why I purchased the book) I read the introduction where a coin I collect is used as a comparison. Problem is the authors statement about that coin( not the subject of the book) is factually wrong! The error is so spectacularly wrong that it has me questioning the authors competence before I even get through the introduction. Worse the author writes, apparently, assuming The reader already has a substantive background knowledge of the coin)
I am finding more and more that I am getting really frustrated by modern numismatic books. The two book I have mentioned here are the tip of the iceberg (for me) In the case of the two above, some money spent on an editor experienced in numismatics would have been an extremely good investment. The 150.00 is volume one, I seriously doubt volume 2 will be issued, and if it is I won't be buying it until I have read it in the library and see substantive improvement. The second book( cost around 50.00) is probably more useful but I don't know how trustworthy the information it contains is... the problem being the author lost credibility in the opening pages.....I would only rely on the information in that book once I have found other references backing the authors claims.... so in effect I have to do research to confirm the content of the book( I don't buy books expecting to have to buy more to back up that first book). All up I have thrown away 200.00 on paper.
For any one planing to publish or write a numismatic book.....Please if you are telling the story(history) of a coin or group of coins please read the following book( its dry boring and a very hard read but if you only apply 10% of what is recommended your book will be significantly improved) first:
Comparative Historical Methods By Mathew Lange, Sage 2013. ISBN 9781849206273
Edited by austrokiwi
10/03/2015 09:06 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
9395 Posts |
Sometimes, the modern books are a lot easier to use when attributing coins.
For example -- for early US quarters, there was the Browning book from 1925 (mine is the 1981 reprint), with mainly verbal descriptions of the varieties, with small pics in the back. In 1992, a revision with much better pictures came out. Then, after 2005 or so, we got two new well-illustrated (and much bigger books) on early quarters.
Same thing for half dollars (Compare Beistle with The latest Overton book).
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Pillar of the Community
 2087 Posts |
I generally don't have too much problems with catalogs. My comments are relating to the books that purport to tell the story of the coin they are about. One of the best books I have ever seen is the United States Trade dollar by John Willem. That book is informative has a solid research base and teaches the reader. I have seen few modern numismatic books that match the quality of that book |
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
856 Posts |
I guess research based numismatic literature is a specialist area. Consequently the readership is likely to be quite knowledgeable about the subject matter .. in some cases perhaps more so than the authors.
Then there's the question of whether you give a specialist book slightly wider appeal by trying to add generalist information. This isn't so much an issue when we're talking about journal articles. If one article isn't of interest to the readers then probably another will be so there's less need to introduce the subject. But books .. well, I suspect it's a challenge finding both suitable authors and a subsequent readership.
Have you thought of writing something yourself AK? It sounds as if you could contribute a lot to your field of interest.
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Pillar of the Community
2087 Posts |
Quote:
Have you thought of writing something yourself AK? It sounds as if you could contribute a lot to your field of interest. I have published some articles. I know how hard it is to write... more than some I suspect. I have a form of dyslexia that used to be called developmental writing disorder( think its now called dysgraphia). Writing for me is demanding. When I write articles I have to return to the writing after several days gap and correct all the garbage that my brain/ motor control areas spit out through my fingers. Once I have sorted that out( can take two or three goes at that) I have to read carefully to ensure that I have actually written what I meant to write. This second step is not dyslexia related rather what I have learnt from writing coin articles. You can be so focused on what you are writing you may well produce work that though not wrong is misleading. You( well at least I have to) have to read suspending all your knowledge to ensure your words do not suggest an alternate meaning. I am hugely critical of my own work. If you get the Numismatist check the December 2014 issue... the article on Maria Theresa Thalers is mine, I also had an article in the International Numismatist Bulletin in ( from memory May/June) this year. I would like to rewrite both( but that is normal for me) BTW There is an interesting advantage with my dyslexia: speed reading) Edited by austrokiwi
10/03/2015 10:37 am
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Valued Member
Slovenia
459 Posts |
If it's any comfort, I have dyslexia too and, by some strange twist of fate, make about a third to half of my income with writing (but not on numismatics... nor history) :)
More on-topic; I was similary disappointed by certain books I bought last month. Not that they are really that bad, just story and/or history wise very poor.
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Pillar of the Community
1325 Posts |
I think the problem may be people are writing books based on Wikipedia and Youtube, and both can jsut be plain wrong. One recent video posted here claims the Walking Liberty halves and ASE are made entirely different ways, thought they use the same 109 year old machines. The kid had some other easily verifiable information in his little video, but then jsut went into opinion and presented his opinion as fact. Sadly most modern people are so naive as to believe anything they read the first time since it was once on the internet, then it MUST be true. Add to this that publishing, even self-publishing is so easy, anyone can do it now. For the hardcover who knows how that happened. Also it seems like the only thing modern coin collectors care about is profits. So a coin book will be focused more on how to get more money out of a certain type of coins. "Get rich quick" books have zero numismatic value as they don't even know what numismatics is. I expect modern books to talk about US gold eagles along these lines: "Some were mint in Charlotte, North Carolina and Dalhonga, Georgia and bare the C and D mint marks." Then they will probably never say anything else about why those 2 places had mints to even make gold coins, because that doesn't help you acquire gold to make a profit on it on its "price index" or "price guide". Older numismatic product might has explained that Charlotte had a bit of a gold rush of its own in the Smokey Mountains from Virginia down to Georgia, and those 2 mints were placed for miners to get to an assayers office nearby and the gold able to be transported shorter distance than to Philly to be made into coins. Just like the San Francisco mint was a product of that gold rush. I forget which year It was I bought the ONLY coin book I own, but it was a pocket guide and it just had mintages and prices of grades of all coins up to that point. I think it was around 1990, but it let me know for making sets that there was no coins minted in some years of some type, so I didn't look for them. Otherwise I have, to this day, never looked at a Red Book and have gotten my numismatic information from things like encyclopedias. |
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Valued Member
Netherlands
74 Posts |
From your description of the first book I think I know what book you're talking about. I bought that book two weeks ago, but haven't found the time yet to have a proper look at it. I am very curious though what section you think is parachuted in!
If the book isn't about a coin type from my country, I must be thinking about the wrong book, but I can't imagine there's many coin books published in that price category, with multiple volumes...
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Pillar of the Community
2087 Posts |
You got the right book. The section on the company seems to have no introduction to its relationship with the coin to the coin, I know there probably is a connection but the linkages aren't obvious to me. Its only when you get to the end of that section, total of 15 pages, the the subject of the book is mentioned but the linkage at that point is, to me, weak. of those 15 pages only the last four cover the subject of the book.
It could be my expectations having finished reading Shaws History of Currency (published 1896) and Hazlitt "The coinage of the European continent" 1893, were much higher than they should have been when I started into that new publication
Edited by austrokiwi
10/08/2015 3:25 pm
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Valued Member
United States
123 Posts |
A book I've enjoyed recently is Cobs, Pieces of Eight, and Treasure Coins. ANA published it, and it is expensive (I borrowed one on interlibrary loan). It is specialized but a lot of good history about the mints and coins of the early Spanish colonies in North and South America. Some other books telling how on one coin the date is 0.5 mm closer to the edge of the coin than another variety... That just seems pretty trivial. |
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Pillar of the Community
2087 Posts |
StephenZ Thanks for that comment I have been looking for a good book on the Spanish dollar. The ANS is as always a center of excellence when it comes to numismatic publications
Edited by austrokiwi
10/10/2015 01:11 am
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Replies: 10 / Views: 2,143 |
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Posted 10/03/2015 09:18 am
