Charlton Standard Catalog Vs. Haxby & Willey

I greatly prefer the Haxby annual guides. The photography is much better, and it includes tokens and other items as well. Charlton went downhill once Bill Cross retired and moved South.

Thank you all for your input! Since my focus at this time is on cents and my shelf space is limited, it sounds like Charlton is the way to go.

Charleton has a nice variety on large cent varities in 2011 you can usually pick one up on ebay or some local coin shops. A few posters on this site also have extensive volumes on different aspects of large cents as well. Depending on your area of interest, there are a few different resources. I really like the haxby book as well for general references, etc...

I purchased the Charlton Vol. 1, 2016 edition, which was the newest I could find at the time of my order. It includes a section at the end on Canadian counterfeits. I was pleased with the depth of information on circulation coins and varieties and the inclusion of a grading guide by monarch. I also like the spiral binding. But I was very disappointed that the book is printed in black and white. In this day and age, I feel that color printing is a necessity for a reference guide.

So, I just ordered the 2024 Haxby (which is printed in color) and am very pleased with it. Being new and printed on glossy paper, many of the pages are stuck together, and I have to very gingerly separate them. This risks tearing them along the spiral binding, which is a tad frustrating, but it is what it is. I feel that the Charlton has more details on circulation coins, so I'm glad to have both books.

What neither book has is a good history of Canadian coins, akin to the introduction of the Red Book. This seems like a major missed opportunity, and is the biggest disappointment for both books.