Coins Books

Hensley and Townsend have crafted a tightly conceived story that will appeal to anyone who has ever looked carefully at the money they handle daily. It will appeal even more to those who've set foot inside of a coin shop or coin show. The hero is a former star gymnast and drunken lawyer, now on his way back to a sober life as a PI and part-time coin dealer. The strongest features of this tale are the characters, perhaps brought to life by the authors and perhaps only remembered from their trips into the world of numismatics. The authors have a way of letting you figure out whom to suspect and why, only to have the hero shoot down that idea in the next chapter. The weakest part of the book is the lack of a surprise ending and a hard to believe reason for wanting to take out the hero in chapter one. Try it, you'll like it.

In Memphis, Al Sears is a recovering alcoholic, who plans to remain sober for the rest of his life because he knows how much the drink cost him. His spouse left him. His law practice died. Finally, his beloved coin collection disappeared during a haze of booze. Getting his life back on track, Al works part-time at Ralph's Coin shop and as a private investigator. Bottom line is that at least for now Al is the poster boy for AA.

However, an individual holding a shotgun tries to abduct Al from his weekly poker game. With the help of his cronies, the culprit is killed. Later, Al learns from the police that the deceased was a professional hit man. Someone, probably from his boozed past, has targeted Al for death. Since he already is climbing up from the bottom, Al decides to uncover the identity of his enemy before his new lease on life is permanently ended.

LOOSE COINS is a well written who-done-it that introduces readers to an interesting and appealing character, filled with flaws and a mistake-laden history. The story line is straight forward, making for an easy, enjoyable experience. However, because of the streamlined plot, the support cast (including the city of Memphis) never displays depth or motivation. Still, Joe L. Hensley and Guy Townsend scribes a fast reading and absorbing novel that will appeal to mystery buffs who want a fast read.

Harriet Klausner

Although its true that some of the coins included in this guide may be popularly collected, I think that their inclusion in this book is a waste of space. Rather than including the State Quarters; Ike, SBA, and Sacagewea dollars; and the Kennedy Halves, which are all too modern to justify inclusion - a better choice would have been the Draped Bust coinage (cents, quarters, halves, dollars), Shield Nickels, and Seated Quarters and Halves. As far as the photos go, they are a hundred times better than those miniature ancient black and white blobs from in the ANA guide. The images of the copper coinages are beautiful, but they could have done a better job which the nickel and silver issues - a bit more contrast and less brightness would have made the details stand out much better. Also, I noticed a few instances where the image of a lower grade coin shows a coin with more detail that the next grade up. A steep cover price, but the best book currently on the market.

A nice reference book for helping novice collectors review and grade coins. I will be taking it with me the next set I start working on. Has lots of photos as examples for what to look for in classifying each grade for a coin, which makes interpreting the words easier.

This is a comprehensive book on the subject of coin grading, and much of the information I am looking for is here. But they don't list all the conditions you would expect to find. A typical coin might have good, fine and extra fine, but lack very good and very fine. So what is a very fine coin worth, halfway between fine and extra fine? Darned if I know.

I read an outdated 1992 version of this book when I first began collecting coins. It was invaluable in my search for decent well-priced, honest-graded coins. I think that anyone who wants to find the value of their coins, ar just learn a little about the hobby, shod read this book.

I dont want people getting the wrong idea about this book. The prices that it lists are RETAIL, so if you buy a coin for the price listed in this book, and you try and sell it on lets say ebay or something, you will LOSE money... I do however think it is a good book for the beginner, it touches on MANY subjects in the coin hobby

I think the official 2001 blackbook price guide to ''United States Coins'' is the best book to buy for advice and information for selling or buying US coins, or for just simply grading coins from your own coin collection, just imagine searching in the internet/shop for some coins, and then enter a web site/shop in which they sell bust dollars, or halves for about 45 dollars that are in AU, XF, OR BU condition, each that actually can have a value of 780 dollars(or more!), you can buy 2 of them and sell them for 780 dollars each, that means 1.560 dollars for the 2 of them and you get a profit of 1.470 dollars ($1.560-$90=$1.470), just imagine that, 1470 dollars!, with that much money you could buy more and more coins for a low price that are actually very rare and expencive, and if you want you can sell them to people(coin collectors or to friends/relatives of coin collectors) that can buy them for lots of money and become rich in no time! So do the right thing and buy this book which can mean great profit for you or others.

Very good folder! I am very impressed with the quality! Would recommend it to anyone!

The slides on this album is prone to scratches. And on mine, anyway, some of the slide pockets are too big, allowing the slide to become tilted and exposing the coin.

Got a used Whitman and the slides cover the coins and seem to be more scratch-resistant.

I don't know the archive quality between the two.

the words were ok,it had some good stuff I didn't know but the art was too babyish. pretty dumb. i would not recomend it.

This is a fabulous book. It not only shows children how important the penny can be but also gives wonderful facts about the Penny's history. At my school, we use it to discuss our Penny Harvest--a time when we collect pennies for charity! Also the illustrations are magnificent!

Most of this book's information is simply a re-hash of previous works, particularly Johnson/Defoe's "A General History of Pirates". This work purports to cover the major pirates of the New England coast, yet almost entirely overlooks Edward Teach (Blackbeard), who spent quite a bit of his time off North Carolina - although the book shows Teach on its cover. The first-hand accounts reprinted in this book are extremely enjoyable, yet I must wonder why such informative accounts have not been included in any other major works on piracy. This leaves me wondering about the authenticity of these accounts. Three times in this work, the flag of Ned Low (and numerous of his shipmates, who set off on their own piratical journeys) is described in detail and each time it is the ensign of Edward Teach that is described, rather than Low, while brief mention of Teach leaves his flag conspicuously undescribed.

While the first-hand accounts are enjoyable to read, I would not recommend this book to serious piratical enthusiasts. Try "A General History of Pirates" instead; you'll read much more reliable accounts of many of the same pirates.

"The Pirates of the New England Coast" constitutes a very well researched and serious source on Piracy for the period 1630-1730. I highly recomend this book, which is well written, entertaining and accurate. The main character is Boston-born Edward Low, the most notorious of all New Englanders who became pirates. Five chapters are dedicated to him, and one to Captain Lowther, his closest partner in plundering. Three chapters are interesting accounts written by seamen who were captured and remained on board Low's ship for weeks. These narrations are among the most valuable sources dealing with life on board a pirate ship. The exploits of other less known pirates such as Harris, Spriggs, Phillips and Fly,(who were all sailing under Low for some time before seeking their own fortunes independently), are also well detailed and researched, based on first hand documents, including: state papers, judicial documents on the pirate trials, and gazettes dating from the Colonial Period.

If you have a 3rd edition of this book, you don't need to buy the 4th edition.

There are no color photos of the coins. Also, the market data just expands on the last 11 years by adding 2002, 2007, and select auction results. One additional passage about "Speedy" and the rest of the book read like the 3rd edition. I had higher hopes for this book as a SLQ collector and 3rd edition owner.

Now in a newly updated and expanded fourth edition, J. H. Cline's "Standing Liberty Quarters" continues to be the best single volume authority for collectors and dealers on the subject. This nicely illustrated compendium with more than 200 high resolution images covers all the Standing Liberty quarters issues from 1916 to 1930. Each page dedicated to a specific coin includes prices, rarity, relative values, mintage, and types. A work of painstaking research and meticulous numismatic scholarship, "Standing Liberty Quarters" is an essential reference for all coin dealers and collectors of this increasingly valuable American coin.

I love this book, It is a great beginners book for coin collectors, easy to read and understand. Only down side is no color pics, all pics are Black and White..

This was a very helpful book,written by experts.
I was able to increase my knowledge of variety coins
and have some new directions in my collecting.

I just flipped through this and thought - wow looks good. Got home and realized there are no records for any Indian Head Pennies, Barber Dimes or Barber Quarters. Don't even think about Large Cents, V Nickels, and seated dimes. A good attempt but useless for me. I guess you get what you pay for.

This book allows the beginning coin collector to easily keep track of their coins. My daughter had trouble keeping her coins straight. Now she has a way to go to a coin show or dealer with a solid reference to exactly what she needs. It helps a lot.