Robert Gilbert is publishing a new book on the telephone tokens of North America. Here's the announcement. -Editor

"I'm working on the final read through of the catalogue; and hope to complete that in the next couple of weeks. Then I will get a proof copy from the printer to make sure everything looks good, and to get the weight of the printed book. This will allow me to determine postage for those who ask about shipping outside of the US. From my estimates, shipping outside the US will be fairly expensive. I hope that people can order through Amazon so that shipping will not be a problem; however, I don't know how they charge for shipping outside the US.

"I decided to have this catalogue cover North America to include Canada along with the US. Then I realized I could cover a few more countries is I use the list of North American countries defined by the UN Statistics Division. That list (which I included in the book) covers 48 countries. I know of telephone tokens from The Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama and the US. I've tried to discover telephone tokens from other countries in this list, but did not find any.

"In the catalogue, I define my criteria of a telephone token. Some may disagree with this definition; however, those who wish can ignore tokens that they think are not telephone tokens.

"In some cases it is not clear if a specific token was used for telephone service. I've separated those tokens for which I have doubt in a separate section of the catalogue identifying these "suspect" telephone tokens.

"The listing of each token includes a full description of the obv and rev along with diameter, thickness, weight, shape, die orientation, border treatment and edge treatment; along with a color picture of the obverse and reverse. Where necessary I include closeup pictures to identify details. There are some tokens for which I don't have a picture. Also I include notes to help define the token. I include references/catalogue numbers used in other catalogues. There is a cross reference which allows one to convert other catalogue numbers to my catalogue.

"The tokens within each country are listed by issuer alphabetically (not by location within the country, e.g., not by state). I include a short description of each issuer; whether they be a telephone company, merchant or some other entity.

"I do NOT include a rarity guide. I've found over recent years that rarity determinations can change; especially given the use of eBay and other auction site and with the use of Internet communities like WoC. I am thinking about creating a separate rarity guide which can easily be updated periodically as new information is uncovered.

"The catalogue does include a complete listing of the Goetz/Yale Slot and Slug tokens (catalogued in Frank Earl's "Slotted, Grooved, & Punched"). These tokens consume about 80 of the 270 pages of the catalogue. I list several tokens and die varieties not covered in Earl.

"Speaking of die varieties, I include many die varieties in a manner that allows the collector to ignore these minor token differences if that is one's preference."