I picked up
A Guide Book of Lincoln Cents by Q. David Bowers last weekend and thought I would post a review of what I thought of it.
It starts off with a nice forward by Charles D. Daughtrey and moves into some very interesting sections. There is of course the history of the
Lincoln Cent both wheat and memorial reverse. Then it moves into the minting process. After that it goes into the proofs and how they were made from 1909 to date.
The proof section I found very informative and interesting, after that it goes into grading Lincoln Cents, Mr. Bowers is very honest when it comes to third party grading services and provides some background on when they started.
It then moves into how to be a smart buyer, ways to collect, then finally analysis and market guide to Lincoln Cents. For each year he describes how the dies were that year, what was going on in the world of numismatics, some nice notes, striking and sharpness population reports for MS wheat coins and PF for memorials. There is also a price guide that is pretty close.
What I found interesting was how he took quotes, articles, and other things of interest from some other very popular Lincoln experts. He tried to offer both sides of the fence views and some issues. Take the 22 no "D", there is an quote from Chuck that explains how it is nothing more than a worn out die.
The book has nice color pictures for each year (I think they need to be a little larger)
Things I would change about the book would be- Larger pictures for the grading section, population reports for key dates that go before MS-65 and population reports for MS memorial cents and PF wheat cents.
All in all I would give this book a 9 on a scale of 1-10 and would recomend it to any Lincoln collector.
Posted 05/09/2008 3:25 pm
