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MORE ON BONANZA BOOKS
Last week Mike Costanzo asked about Bonanza Press. He wrote, "They were a small California-based publisher that published numerous numismatic books in the early to mid 1970's. Most of their publications were inexpensive guidebook-related small format hardcovers. They also published Q. David Bowers' first edition of Coins and Collectors in 1974. Other than that, Bonanza never seemed to have published anything groundbreaking," -Editor David Fanning writes: "The first edition of "Coins & Collectors" was published in 1964 by Windsor Research Publications (a branch of Empire Coin Company). Bonanza later reissued it. They also published second printings of Bowers's "Put Another Nickel In" and "Early American Car Advertisements" following the much smaller first printings." Pete Smith writes: "I have a copy of Pillars & Portraits by Robert P. Harris. The publisher was Bonanza Press / Box 820, Cupertino, California 95014. I can't help with them. "I also have a copy of Coins and Collectors by Q. David Bowers. The publisher of that book is Bonanza Books, a division of Crown Publishers, Inc., 419 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10016. "On the other side of my library, I have a copy of The Civil War by Bruce Catton. It is also published by Bonanza Books, a division of Crown Publishers, Inc. The Bowers book weighs twelve ounces. The Catton book weighs five pounds. "Open Library states that Bonanza Books published 598 books between 1776 and 2024. I don't have all of them." So the key was learning that Bonanza is/was a division of a larger mainstream publishing house. And Pete discovered that fact by looking in a physical book, not online. Kudos! I have two copies of the Bowers book, both signed first editions, not the Bonanza edition. So naturally, I used "What is the history of Bonanza Books, a division of Crown Publishers?" as a prompt to an AI chatbot. Here's the response. -Editor Bonanza Books was an imprint of Crown Publishers, which itself has a fascinating history. Crown Publishers was founded in 1933 as the Outlet Book Company by Nat Wartels and Bob Simon. Initially, it focused on selling overstock and remaindered books but later expanded into reprints and original publications under the Crown name. Bonanza Books became known for publishing reprints of out-of-print titles, particularly in non-fiction genres like history, art, and collectibles. Crown Publishers was acquired by Random House in 1988 and eventually became part of Penguin Random House. Over the years, Crown has operated various imprints, including Bonanza Books, which contributed to its reputation for offering a wide range of accessible and engaging titles. That seems to fit - Bonanza published reprints of books on collectibles, which describes both of the numismatic books discussed. This will require some fact-checking of course, but the tool I used (Microsoft Copilot) provided footnotes linked to sources including Open Library, Fandom, and Wikipedia. Thanks, everyone! Interesting question (and answer). Which begs the next question - who were the other major publishers of numismatic book reprints? -Editor
To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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