Coins Books

This book is a defence of the Gold Standard system, for the author sees gold as a means to restrict unlimited printing of paper money by governments.
'Gold is a monument to man's barbarity ... without some sort of mutual economic weapon ... man's inhumanity to man, man's greed, man's lust for power and fame will cause him to lie, cheat, steal, distort, and, is he a politician, to do so with a smiling face, saying it is for your own good and in the public interest.'

A return to the Gold Standard is however out of question today, alone already for the socio-economic policies it imposes (unemployment, reduction of wages).

For people still interested in investing in gold, I remind the words of H.-F. Oppenheimer, the late president of Anglo-American, the greatest producer of gold and diamonds in the world: 'People buy gold out of stupidity and diamonds out of vanity'.

Governments have been big sellers of gold lately for budget deficit reasons but also because they earn interest on their currency holdings.
Gold depreciates every year by the amount of interest people receive on their equivalent money savings.
Gold's only interest is industrial. In the long run, its price will be determined by its economic utility.

This book contains an interesting quote by Cicero adressing the Roman senate: 'The budget should be balanced, the Theasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed less Rome becomes bankrupt.'

A partly dated book with some interesting viewpoints.

Did I buy this book? Yes. Did I read this book? Yes. I found this book is for beginners. Will you become an "instant expert"? In one word, No. This book is for someone to get a "taste" or a "look-see" about collecting. Then move on to other, more in-depth, books or delve deeper into the hobby. 3 words should be add to the title, "of the world". Half, if not more of the book is taken-up by information of world coins. There is no information about "Civil War" tokens, "Hard Times" tokens or elongated coins (even though one is on the cover). There is too much "fluff" in this book. One example is a heading called "Lucky Paper Money". There are 6 pages about notes, including pictures. Please, lets stick to the title "Collecting Lucky COINS, TOKENS and MEDALS", this is why I bought the book. I do not want to read about problems people have on Ebay, I want information about "Lucky COINS, TOKENS and MEDALS"

This is a review of Irish coins by Arthur Went who was primarily a medal collector. It is a good introduction for the curious but does not contain enough detail for collectors.

I thought having a book that had a cross reference of Minkus and Scott stamp catalog numbers would be great. After using the Krause-Minkus Standard I have my doubts that this catalog is all that useful. I had problems with several sections of stamps not being listed and many listed incorrectly. Several stamp pictures were swapped around and several have the same Scott catalog numbers even when the denominations were different. As I said it was a good attempt at combining the two different publications into a single catalog but I feel that more time should have been taken to edit and proof the work prior to publishing. I think that if Krause-Minkus were to provide a credit to those that had purchased the 1998 edition it will keep some collects using the Krause numbers. I for one would ask for a refund or a replacement 1999 catalog.

Although I have only had my MXT for four months I had read that this book was the holy grail for the MXT owner. After reading it, then re-reading it I find that it is much less than I expected. There is a tremendious amount of repitition, not just once but 3-4 time in many instances. I feel that 90% of the information can be found in the owners manual that is presented here. That is not to say that I didn't gain any new, relevant information from the book, I did but not worth the price. The book is well bound so it will lay flat on a table if you desire to read it that way and the print is large enough for most of us old foggies.

It may be of help to a total newcomer to metal detecting with the MXT but not for anyone who has any experience at the hobby. Sorry I can't give it the rave review that others have on other sites but for me it didn't give me the "Edge" that I was expecting.

I suggest that a new MXT owner take the time to read their manual carefully then get out and use the machine. It is an absolutely great detector and does as well at coin shooting as it does with relics. I have never had the ocassion to use it for prospecting but from what I have heard it excels there also. For those who have read comments about erratic behavior read your manual, turn down the sensitivity in mineralized ground and LEARN YOUR MACHINE. It will bring more good finds out of the ground than anything I have ever used and I have used a lot of different machines. Straight out of the box it is by far the easiest detector to use that I have ever owned.

Information about US coins in this book is easy to find, easy to understand. It contains some background information about each series, but not enough. I find myself using the Red Book more often.

Somewhat disappointing at first. I expected a "formal" price guide like a Red Book or Blue Book but instead, the pricing is very generic. It lists a type of mint error and gives it "from" pricing such as "from $50 and up". The guide is excellent at explaining the minting process and how errors occur.

Very good job, this is a complete , detailed review of Polish Museums in this theme.

While I found the book interesting I found it very distracting to have to flip
from page of text to the back of the book to find the correct plate and illustration of the coin referred to in the text. Sandwiched between the text and plates are found notes and the index-all in that order. On the plus side there is a wealth of history covering a large part of the Empire
as well as the people in power.

This book represents a brief introduction to a very vast, and remarkably untouched subject of Scottish coinage. The illustrations, all in black and white are helpful as well as the text. However if you are looking for a authoritative approach, I would suggest the purchase of a Seaby or Coincraft volume on Scottish coinage as an accompaniment to this book.