CROWDSOURCING AND NUMISMATIC PUBLISHING

What's the state of numismatic publishing today? Coin collectors are spoiled! Or at least it feels like we are when it comes to photographs in numismatic books, compared to fifteen or twenty years ago and more. Full color, high resolution, and visual perfection are the order of the day for 21st-century hobbyists.

In Whitman Publishing books, coin collectors are used to seeing beautifully preserved Mint State coins—well-struck examples that illustrate types, dates, and die varieties with crisp detail and generous eye appeal.

Earlier this year, though, we took a road less traveled.

In February 2017 I put out a call for "problem coins" to illustrate some of the educational warnings author Kenneth Bressett gives in his new Whitman Guide to Coin Collecting. I asked hobbyists for high-resolution photographs of PVC damage, bag marks, scratches, edge bumps, nicks, dents, and other problems caused by poor handling or storage.

The call for cull coins quickly spread throughout the hobby community. Publications like Coin World, Numismatic News, The Numismatist, E-Sylum, Coin Update, Mint News Blog, Scott Barman's Coin Collectors Blog, and Coins Weekly helped get the word out.

When Numismatic News editor Dave Harper saw our request for damaged coins, he remembered a painfully educational experience. "There are many problem coins out there," he noted in his column. "Collectors cannot be collectors for long without encountering them." He recalled a 1940-D Washington quarter he bought when he was a child. After he got the coin in the mail he took it out of its stapled 2×2 holder—and that's when he saw the deep gouge in its rim. The seller had a "no returns" policy for coins removed from their holders, so Harper was stuck with the damaged quarter. "Problem coins are educational," he wrote in his column. "I was educated by one. I expect other collectors have been, too."

In the new Whitman Guide to Coin Collecting, author Ken Bressett—longtime senior editor of the Guide Book of United States Coins, known as the "Red Book"—tells about the dangers of storing coins in polyvinyl-chloride (PVC) holders; the correct ways to handle coins; proper storage and display; and ways to avoid damage to our collections.

Instead of simply telling about the risks and dangers, we decided to show them.

I talked with dozens of collectors from across the United States and Canada, and all together they shared photographs of more than 300 coins.

To read the complete article, see:
Good photos of bad coins: An example of crowdsourcing and numismatic publishing (http://news.coinupdate.com/good-photos-of-bad-coins-an-example-of-crowdsourcing-and-numismatic-publishing/)

To read the earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
IMPERFECT COINS SOUGHT FOR WHITMAN PROJECT (http://www.coinbooks.org/v20/esylum_v20n09a06.html)
NEW BOOK: WHITMAN GUIDE TO COIN COLLECTING (http://www.coinbooks.org/v20/esylum_v20n30a02.html)

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