When Stack's moved from 23rd Street to West 46th Street, then to our location on West 57thStreet, the shop had a numismatic library that became the envy of every dealer. It had early books,pamphlets, auction catalogs, manuscripts, and photographs -- the reference sources needed forStack's to produce auction catalogs and price lists for our clients. Those who came to visitour various locations were offered free use of the library material we had assembled. Thus we werenot only responsible for building major collections and developing new collectors, but we couldalso supply references needed by collectors to guide their collecting endeavors.

Stack's retail store always had a number of shelves devoted to the sale of books and albums.These were appealing to collectors as well as people who were looking for a coin-related giftrather than a coin. A book or album could fit this bill and they enhanced our retail sales.

From the 1950s through the end of the 20th-century, literature and albums were very affordable.You could get the current edition of A Guide Book of United States Coins for $1.95. HardboundWhitman coin albums for storing coins by date and mint could be bought for 25 cents. Deluxe albumsmade by National Coin Album Co. (owned by Wayte Raymond) and later by Meghrig Co. -- featuringloose-leaf pages, with cellophane slides to see both sides of the coin) -- sold for $1.50 for thealbum and 80 cents for each page. Each page measured 5-1/2 by 8 inches and was imprinted for thedates and mints needed for a collection. With a full stock of albums, pages and reference books, wehad opportunities for multiple-item retail sales. Quite often the pages invited buyers to purchasea few coins to start filling in the empty holes. Then the challenge was to complete the album orpage, often resulting in more visits to the store where a collector could learn more and more,often moving on to other specialties.

Two books that always sold tremendously well were the current edition of A Guide Book ofUnited States Coins (as mentioned above, a very good deal at $1.95) and a book for youngstersentitled Nails to Nickels for $3 or so. The latter was designed to attract children to thehobby and featured great illustrations and stories to encourage them to become the collectors ofthe future

In Part 3 I will talk more about the current situation with regard to numismatic publicationsand why I think coin literature is still important.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
HARVEY STACK ON BOOKS AND THEIR VALUE(www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v17n45a06.html)