NEW BOOK: SECRETS OF SMART COIN-BUYING

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V20 2017 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 20, Number 41, October 8, 2017, Article 2

Dennis Tucker of Whitman Publishing forwarded this press release for a new book on coin collecting by Dave Bowers. Thanks. -Editor

Whitman Publishing announces the release of the newest book by Q. David Bowers. Inside the Rare Coin Marketplace: Secrets to Being a Smart Buyer debuted October 1, 2017. The 320-page full-color volume is available online (including at Whitman.com) and in bookstores and hobby shops nationwide for $14.95.

Inside the Rare Coin Marketplace shares Bowers’s more than 60 years of experience as a coin collector, professional dealer, award-winning author and researcher, and past president of the American Numismatic Association. He tells how to build a meaningful and significant coin collection on any budget, for your own pleasure, for investment, to share a fun hobby with your friends and family, and to explore history, art, commerce, technology, and many other areas of interest that are touched by coins.

Bowers’s goal, as he writes in his preface: “I would like you to become an expert collector of your choice of specialties: coins, tokens, and/or medals.” His case studies, personal recollections, and advice are accompanied by more than 800 coin and medal photographs, engravings, old cartoons, family photos, and other illustrations.

“I do not pretend to predict cycles for modern art or autographs or restorable Victorian houses,” Bowers writes, “but I have a lifetime of experience with rare coins, enabling me to predict (so far) various sea changes in that market.”

The book’s range is broad, with discussions of the minting process and distribution of coins; planchet quality, sharpness of details, and other eye-appeal factors; cleaning coins; elements of a coin’s value, including but not limited to grade; how to build a great collection; selecting quality and value in the marketplace; modern grading, including third-party certification; a discussion of every type of United States coin; colonial and early American coins and tokens; treasure and shipwreck coins; fair and exposition medals; commemorative coins; pattern coins; Civil War tokens; private and territorial gold coins; good-for tokens; collecting numismatic books; Hard Times tokens; encased postage stamps; Society of Medalist issues and other medals; and counterstamped coins.

Bowers describes coin collecting and market trends dating back to the 1700s—a valuable study that gives insight to modern-day cycles. His final chapter is a “personal scrapbook” of his experiences in the coin market going back to the 1950s. Bowers tells of his start as a coin dealer at the age of 14, meeting and learning from famous coin dealers and collectors like John J. Pittman, Abe Kosoff, and John J. Ford Jr., the changes of the 1960s, numismatic trips to Europe, the U.S. Treasury hoards of silver dollars, developments in the markets, the rise of third-party grading, modern research and publishing, and countless other people, places, and events—all from his personal perspective, and told in his unique style, like sitting down after dinner with an old friend.

Kennth Bressett, longtime editor of the Guide Book of United States Coins (the “Red Book”), wrote the book’s foreword. “Yes, there are secrets to becoming a smart coin buyer and to enjoying a great coin collection,” he says. “Within this book you will learn and benefit from them all.”

Because Whitman Publishing is the Official Supplier of the American Numismatic Association, ANA members receive 10% off when ordering the book directly from the publisher. ANA members can also borrow it for free from the Association’s Dwight N. Manley Numismatic Library.