What Do You Use For Information.

The Charlton Coin Guides are great. They have lots of images to show varieties. Though, the picture could be a bit bigger.

I think the Red Book is a great reference for coins. It has nice pictures. I never buy coins at Red Book prices. I'm a bargain shopper. You just have to be patient and wait for a deal. I also got lots of coin experience from roll searching and junk silver if you are interested in modern coinage. You can get a feel for how to grade a coin and what really is rare. Have fun and collect what you like!

Depends also what area of coins you want to collect. The one that I always go back to is the North American "Krause (a publisher)" because that's what interests me most. If you need to find out about a particular variety of coin from a certain country, it would help to have a book specifically about that region and time frame. Charlton is okay, but doesn't list some variations that should be there.

If you're new, I think that a book that is dedicated to only grading coins would benefit your needs most. Remember though that different mints have different processes of making coins, so one particular vrade is going to be judged differently from country to country.

A book that shares a historical point of view is also good, since you get to learn why coins are the way they are.

Beware: some books are merely pocket guides, and while they contain lots of pretty colour photos of "mint-state" coins, they offer very little help on grading, or price guides under the "MS" range. I found this to be true of Warman's US coins. A good little reference for history and coin types, plus a bonus section in the back containing paper money, but very little help on lower grades.

I don't yet have a Red Book. My Krause seems to answer all the questions I usually have. Krause is packed with information, however, this info is somewhat inconsistent throughout the book, presumably to save on ink. Some coins will feature the diameter along with its weight, while others "forget" to add this.

Take your time at the library. Which book speaks to you?

Libertad once professed to owning over 300 on Latin American coins alone.

Never did, where did you read that!

I could have sworn that you posted that in a thread about Rials about a year ago. Oh, it may have been swamperbob. My apologies but some one has one heck of a library on Latin coins because I was completely in awe after reading that posting. If my memory serves me, seems it was something about "dragons teeth".