One question I hear quite often from beginning as well as advanced collectors is: "Why buythe book before the coin?". The question often comes from Internet collectors, who seem tothink of that as the only source of information. Well, the Internet is good, but at the same timeit can't offer everything.

I was brought up in a numismatic retail shop, run by my father and uncle, which was opened in arecession period. The goal during the 1930s at the first Stack's in New York City wasdeveloping a solid base of collectors that the store could serve. So they assembled a vastselection of inventory, with coins from ancient to modern, from the United States as well as therest of the world, in gold, silver, copper and any other metal. They also assembled a library ofreference books, auction catalogs, price lists and photographs. As dealers retired, Stack's boughtentire libraries. Likewise Stack's would purchase collectors' libraries, including those assembledby specialists.

Printed information about coins and their history was not always found in the average coin shop,but Stack's tried to have as many books as they could among the items they offered for sale.During the 1930s and 1940s many of the now-famous collectors were building their cabinets. Each hada specialty or two or three, and when these specialized collections were sold, the auction catalogsbecame current reference books.

Among printed references we had The Numismatist, and publications from the AmericanNumismatic Society. Unfortunately this type of publications often carried very technicalinformation about a series that interested the writer, and rarely had guidance for new collectorson how to build their own collections. One of the early standard references published during thisperiod was the Standard Catalog of United States Coins. It was basically a tabulation of thedates and mints issued by the United States, and showed suggested retail prices. Most otherpublications had numismatic ads from dealers around the country, but no suggestions how to collector what to look for.

Some specialized references were more informative and descriptive, but many were either theinventories of collections being formed or were so highly specialized that they made it difficultto learn the basics. Auction catalogs of the period and of the decades before were the basicguideposts for the collector. The dealers or auctioneers who wrote the catalogs (some wereextensively illustrated by drawings or early photographs) learned about the coins as they createdthe catalogs. They were also the experts on grading and other aspects of collecting. In this waythe dealer/auctioneer became the teacher, passing this information on to other collectors.

It was (and still is) often said, that one should not try to build an outstanding collectionwithout guidance from books, dealers or fellow collectors. Coin clubs in and around largemetropolitan areas became sources for information and these clubs grew rapidly as the informationdisseminated between members guided collectors in many areas including rarity, grading andmore.

To read the complete article, see:
Books and their Value to Collectors, Part 1(www.stacksbowers.com/NewsMedia/Blogs/TabId/780/ArtMID/
2678/ArticleID/64819/Books-and-their-Value-to-Collectors-Part-1.aspx)