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To participate in the forum you must log in or register. | Author |
 Replies: 7 / Views: 4,280 |
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Valued Member
United States
127 Posts |
Anyone have it? It looks like the book itself is a collectible, I don't know if I could drop over $100 on a book about walkers that's over 20 years old but I have been reading through the excerpts on this site that I found on the forums: https://www.davidlawrence.com/books...alf-dollars/I wonder what information has not been included, and if it's as important as the stuff they chose to upload. I also wonder whats changed as far as populations/rarity goes since there's been another 22 years of people discovering/melting/grading them. It's times like this where I wish more coin books came in ebook format, or were at least scanned and offered free to the public when physical copies are prohibitively expensive. I've saved every excerpt page from the above site and compiled it into a pdf document so I can scroll through it for notes when I'm looking for coins. I think for now this will be fine, but I am wondering about what's missing |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4409 Posts |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
94367 Posts |
Aagree the Bowers book is a must for the WLH collecdtor.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
9796 Posts |
I'd only get it if you are a book collector, the newer book by Bowers is better, with more up to date information as stated above. Bruce Fox books, while all are pretty good and informative (IMO), all have been succeeded by much more through researched books on the subjects he covers, mainly W.L. Half dollars, Morgan & Peace dollars. Same goes for the Greer book on Half Dimes, the Lange books on Buffalo nickels, the only really good one out of that publication series (DLRC Publications) still much in demand, is Larry Briggs' Encyclopedia of Seated quarters (which I finally just got), I've had one copy a long time ago and sold it to a friend at my cost, thinking I'd just order another one, well that was in 1992, it took until last week to finally get a copy that wasn't several hundred dollars! Big kudos to John Feigenbaum, (David's son) who now runs DLRC for putting those books up free of charge to read online. John is a super nice guy, great coin dealer and earlier this year when DLRC was updating their website, I noticed most of the book links had gone away, I wrote to him asking if that was intentional or a mistake, he responded back to me and had all the links back up adding several more books than they originally had. http://www.davidlawrence.com/books"Buy the Book Before You Buy the Coin" - Aaron R. Feldman - "And read it" - Me 2013! ANA Life Member #3288 in good standing since 1981, ANS, Early American Coppers Member (EAC), Colonial Coin Collectors Club member (C4), Conder Token Collector Club member (CTCC), Civil War Token Society (CWTS) member, Liberty Seated Collectors Club (LSCC) & Numismatic Bibliomania Society member (NBS), USMex, Member in good standing, 2¢ variety collector. See my want page: http://goccf.com/t/140440 |
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Valued Member
 United States
127 Posts |
I did come across the bowers book before but I remember reading this review, which led me to to making this post about the bruce fox book: "Unfortunately, I must agree with the other reviewer that gave this book only two stars. There are other books that cover each of these series in a more comprehensive manner: David Lange on Mercury dimes, J.H. Cline on Standing Liberty quarters, and Bruce Fox on Walking Liberty halves. These authors are referred to in some of the text. I also found the history part on each year extremely superficial. For example, for 1938, he doesn't even mention Hitler's takeover of Austria, and the Munich Agreement! I expect more from the author, as has been the case for most of the titles in the Official Red Book Series, with the new volume on Half Cents and Large Cents being a good example. The only thing that I found helpful was his advice not to go by a certified grade only, if the coin does not have eye appeal. Also, split bans for the dimes and full heads for the quarters should not be the only consideration. A nice MS-63 or MS-64 example without the above details, but with a good strike and eye appeal, may be a better and cheaper choice. Sometimes deferring to a better book already published, but not by Whitman, is a better choice if there is no specialist for the series available who will write a truly comprehensive treatment. Also, I personally cannot afford these coins in mint state, so the advice needs to be aimed toward affordability as well as quality. This is a problem in all of Bowers books, which implies you should forget coin collecting if you have modest means." |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
9796 Posts |
At least you can read Bruce Fox's book on WL Halves for free online at DLRC a "try it before you buy it" I'm pretty sure I have his book in my library (much is in storage at the moment, I have many books that have been superseded by newer more complete reference books, but I still like have as many different books (some are just revisions or edition upgrades of the same work) in my library as I can.
"Buy the Book Before You Buy the Coin" - Aaron R. Feldman - "And read it" - Me 2013! ANA Life Member #3288 in good standing since 1981, ANS, Early American Coppers Member (EAC), Colonial Coin Collectors Club member (C4), Conder Token Collector Club member (CTCC), Civil War Token Society (CWTS) member, Liberty Seated Collectors Club (LSCC) & Numismatic Bibliomania Society member (NBS), USMex, Member in good standing, 2¢ variety collector. See my want page: http://goccf.com/t/140440 |
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Valued Member
United States
127 Posts |
Well I bought the new WLH book and unfortunately it met my expectations. 100 pages of US history not really related to the coins. The "meat" of the book for me is about 40 pages of date by date analysis which actually are not as detailed as the bruce fox book written over 20 years ago. There are about 4 pages about walkers and their strike characteristics, grading guide which isn't as specific as the bruce fox book, and thats it. I guess its not bad for $20 but also not the holy grail of information I was looking for. Don't get me wrong, I think I will learn a lot from this book, and theres definitely new information in it, but thats just my initial impression of it
Edited by Turbolag
11/21/2015 1:27 pm
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Rest in Peace
United States
17900 Posts |
For those who have an interest in profit, buying numimatic and exonumic books that are about a specific subject and usually limited in the number of copies printed will almost always produce better results than the coins or tokens they tell about.
I've had the good fortune of buying a number of numismatic libraries from collectors who were astonished at the prices I was willing to pay. I was then very happy to sell them (most of them) for a small profit, too.
If I'd put the money I've put into coins into books about coins over the last 40 years, I have no doubt I could have purchased the coins I have today at today's prices and still had a chunk left over.
The old saying about buying the book before the coin should be tattooed on our hands - whichever hand is used to take the money out of our wallets.
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Replies: 7 / Views: 4,280 |
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Posted 11/15/2015 3:46 pm
