Regarding Coin World back issues, I saved them for a quite a few years and finally gave up. Today I tear the articles out as soon as I get them and file them into books and/or research folders. Of course, that presents a whole new set of problems - do I file Roger Burdette's latest article on the 1933 $20 in the Stack's/Sotheby's 1933 catalog, Alison Frankel's book, David Tripp's book, Michael Moran's book, my personal file on Secret Service activities related to the gold recall, the Redbook of Double Eagles, Akers' book on double eagle auction records, or Roger's Renaissance of American Coinage series? One thing is for sure - I will save it......somewhere!

I am sure many sets of Coin World, complete or incomplete, have been destroyed over the years. I had a partial set, about 90% complete from 1962 forward, when I lived in New Hampshire. The cost to move it to Louisiana in 2003 was prohibitive. In fact, the moving company wouldn’t take it!

Local auctioneer Steve Scofield of Centennial Auctions listed them by year in one of his sales, and received bids for some of the earlier years that were sent out to the successful bidders. The balance went to the recycling plant.

On an early visit to Jack Collins at his home in South Gate, California, a Los Angeles suburb in the heart of earthquake country, I was reminded upon entering his library (which doubled as his bedroom) of a scene from an Indiana Jones movie. Stacked on either side of of the doorway were seven foot stacks of huge thick volumes bound in black cloth. Yes, you guessed it - Jack had bought a bound set of Coin World at a local public library sale.

The stacks moved ever so slightly as I entered the room, or perhaps I imagined that. Two walls of the bedroom were lined with overflowing bookcases and a number of cardboard cartons of books and catalogues were on the bed (Jack stacked these at night on the floor before going to sleep).

Shrouded in plastic in a small clothes closet was the toreador outfit worn by Cantinflas in Around the World in Eighty Days. A relative of Jack's was in the movie business and gave it to Jack. For several years, Jack was an assistant Hollywood producer, involved in Sonny & Cher specials, Laugh-In episodes, etc. In earlier years he owned a beer bar and also owned an upscale coin shop in the early 70s.

On a later visit, the Coin Worlds were gone; I do not recall what he did with them.

By the early 1980's I was subscribing to about 30 numismatic publications, and knew I couldn't maintain files of all of them. I decided early on not to keep Coin World because of its size, but have clipped items of interest since the 1970's.

I do want to make two points. First, about 1975 Coin World became available on microfilm. You could buy the set on microfilm, but in order to do so, you had to have current subscription. I decided at that time that I would eventually but the set on microfilm. Unfortunately, I never did and I don't know whether it is still available for sale.

Second, there is an index to Coin World -- or at least, there was. In the 1980's I wrote to Coin World asking if they could list any articles on Missouri tokens which had appeared in their publication. To my surprise, they sent pages and pages, xeroxed from some master list they were keeping internally. So, it is possible that Coin World still has an internal index, and perhaps someone could persuade them to make it available --- perhaps by donating a copy to the ANA Library.

I do, however, maintain files of World Coin News and Bank Note Reporter, both of which began as tabloid size newspapers. I worked for World Coin News during 1975-1977, and have a complete set from Volume 1 #0 (which came before Vol. 1 #1). The first few years I had hardbound -- back when it was affordable to do so. I also have nearly a full set of Bank Note Reporter.

Because I moved several times (including a year in China), a few issues of BNR and perhaps WCN went astray. Last month I unpacked and sorted all the back issues of WCN and BNR. The current size of these periodicals fits nicely in the one foot square fold-up boxes sold by the OfficeMax chain. The Swedish department store chain, Ikea, sells a fold-up box which is just right for storing letter size magazines like Numismatist, TAMS Journal, and Paper Money magazine.

Unfortunately, I haven't found a box which holds tabloid-size publications efficiently. Currently I have my tabloids in fold-up boxes which are about 6 inches too long. There is probably some specialty company which makes boxes to hold tabloid-size publications, but I haven't found it yet. Any suggestions?