The Difference In Books?

The Blue Book has wholesale prices, the Red Book has retail prices.

I see you have the same problem I do. Not sure why but I too keep typing jsut instead of just. Wierd isn't it?
As to those books. The Blue book is so low on prices it is not ever worth purchasing. You can not use those prices for anthing with anybody. If you should sell a coin for those prices, you would be out about 75% of what it should be.
The Red Book, as most will tell you is for prices really a guide. WAy over killed on values by about 20% or more. A 2 to 3 year old version has prices that are reasonable. Haven't seen the 2012 one yet but tradition should be the prices in there will be excessive.
I never did understand why the Red Book or the PCGS web site does that over pricing. With PCGS I suspect it is done to make people want to send in their coins thinking they are now rich.
The main thing with the Red Book is the information it contains. Very few books on coins has that exact detail on such a wide variety of US coins. True some specialize in one coin and they contain much more but then too, only on one thing. The Red Book sells so much more due to it's massive variety on coins and miscellaneous information.
And it is so popular many people actually collect the Red Book as a collectors item. Whitman even made a book about the Red Book.
I thought that was a little show offy.