Buy The Book Before The Coin. Well I Messed That Up

I rely on my RedBook for quick reference.
Nevertheless my first U.S. coin was a Double Eagle, bought when I was a teenager. That was more than 50 years ago.

I did the same thing when I when into ancient Greek coins.
My first was my avatar coin, but I dealt directly with the experts from Spinks in London. That was after an appointment visit to the Coins and Medals Department of the British Museum, where I received lots of good advice.

I didn't really become active in Greek coins for many years after that, because there is so much to learn. That is the reason why I needed to build a good numismatic library.

I now have a reference library of more than 40 books on ancient coins, including a complete set of the R.I.C., bought about 40 years ago, but I find the Sear books much quicker to use.

Internet (especially for current pricing), and CCF are a great help.

My essential numismatic books are as follows:

Richard S. Yeoman - A Guide Book of United States coins - aka the " RedBook"
Q. David Bowers - The History of United States coinage as Illustrated by the Garrett Collection
Sylvester Sage Crosby - Early Coins of America
Don Taxay - U.S. Mint and Coinage
Roger Burdette - Renaissance of American Coinage (3 volumes)
Walter Breen - Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. & Colonial Coins
Bill Fivaz & JT Stanton The Cherrypicker's Guide to rare die varieties (2 volumes)
Frank Stewart - History of the first United States Mint

A membership in the ANA for use of their wonderful lending library - you only pay for the shipping.

There are so many specialized books in each area of numismatics, my own personal library is just over 3500 volumes now. If there is a particular area of coinage you are interested in I will try to help though I am more familiar with United States, Colonial, and United Kingdom (tokens & Provincial coinage) I am also branching into Spain, France and South American early coinage (1400-1700s) things that may have been in circulation here in America.

I have written up some reviews here in this books forum, and I've written up some specialized lists like books on Morgan dollars, large cents, colonial coinages feel free to search through the posts looking for ones by me. Any help I can be I will try, just ask.

Don't forget the Newman Numismatic Portal (NNP)
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/books
and PCGS https://www.PCGS.com/books both sites have many books online for free reading and/or download in PDF formats.

The Top 100 greatest U.S. Numismatic books is listed here at the NBS site Wiki:
http://wiki.coinbooks.org/index.php...c_Literature

Don't overlook auction catalogs, especially the ones that cover collections of specialized items or groups, John J. Ford, Jr., of Stack's, Dan Holmes Large Cents by Goldberg's, Walter Husak Large Cents by Heritage, etc. many great write ups and in some cases like Heritage Auctions Eric P. Newman multi part sale there were many of Eric's books published in the catalogs themselves. They can be an excellent source of research and history.

Also the NNP has many of the specialized collector clubs journals archived for reading.

Early Copper Collectors
Colonial Coin Collectors Club
John Reich Society (early bust coinage)
Barber coins
Seated Liberty Collectors
Fly-In Club (Flying eagle and Indian Head cents)
Civil war tokens

These are just a small listing of available journals and newsletters at the NNP for free (all but the most recent few years).

These are fine books, but indeed there are more detailed reference works on both series.

Careful going down the Large Cent rabbit hole. Besides the coins being expensive, it's what started me on the kick to really collect numismatic literature. My Half Cent and large cent books alone are worth several thousand dollars, not to mention the journals, newsletters and auction catalogs I've also purchased about them. My latest affliction has been colonial, pre-federal and other countries coinage used here in America. I'm just digging the hole deeper and deeper!

For Flying Eagle and Indian Head cents there is no better reference than my friend, Richard (Rick) Snow 2 volume attribution guide. He has an electronic version for iPad or computers that is way more affordable. It's up the the 3rd edition now.
https://www.indiancent.com/inventor...n-books.html

Lincoln cents aren't really my cup of tea, but the Cherrypicker's Guide is a great start, Kevin Flynn has some good titles on Proofs with John Wexler and John is the top authority for them, he has a few books on varieties the majors and many of the really minor varieties, but his website is probably enough to get you going on them. https://doubleddie.com/228401.html