roadbike

Roger, dumb question. How do the parts of the coin stick together? Sorry if you wrote about this and I haven't read it yet, or even worse, haven't remembered it. If so, perhaps direct me to the page numbers.

With gold and silver, I might envision an alloy where the gold and silver meet under the high pressure?

How does it work with base metals?

The audience is essential. But it takes a skilled and talented graphic artist to capture the gist of the book with beauty. Nowadays many if most books don't go the graphic designer route as everyone can play with the typefaces and colors and add photos. When I spot a book like this (this doesn't apply to numismatic books, I realize they have very small press runs and that they are done out of love for the hobby) I examine the contents and discover it's well, not first rate.

Real publishing has almost disappeared. If you pull out some volumes in any bookstore you'll see the lack of appear on so many covers., will instantly notice the thick cheap paper, the large font and the whitespace between the lines, the lack of reviews from reputable media printed on the cover, and overall light weight of the book.

There are book collectors and I dare say it's an extremely challenging hobby or avocation. In our hobby we have the Numismatic Bibliomania Society. Who knows, perhaps in the future groups like this will be like the monasteries of the Middle Ages--saving knowledge until the world regains appreciation for this knowledge.

I suspect that years from now, books written before this time will have an extra air of authenticity--they can't have been changed by the computer. We all desire authentic coins. The day will come when we will treasure authentic information. Chat GPT 4 and other intelligence programs are not just tools but game-changers.

All these Red Books--they are what they are and so are printed coin catalogs. Maybe those who change books via the computer, especially e-books mand the like, are similar to the coin doctors?

Not yet--but I've been warned. I really miss my old Schwinn!

I like your screen name, Quintus Arrius. If I recall, QA was the mentor and protector of Ben-Hur in the eponymous movie as well as a real-life person. Are there any numismatic books concerning the coins of Quintus Arrius? I'm just learning about Roman coins. Can you recommend any books? (Let's not sweat the covers.) Thanks.

Bi-metallic coins have never appealed to me--they seem to be aluminum and/or other light or non-precious alloys. Witness the "cent value" Euro coins since 2002. Didn't know they were ever made with precious medals, although the (1793?) large cent with the silver dot comes close. It was neat to see that there were designs with precious metals.

Here are some numismatic book covers that I love;

Harry Salyards, Eagle poised on a bank of clouds

Christopher Faulkner, Imperial designs--Canada's shops, colonies and commerce tokens

Peter Jencius, Vatican City coins

David Sears, Roman coins. (1988 single volume edition)

Francis Paul Prucha, Indian medals in American History

Charlton standard catalog, Canadian Colonial tokens, 10th edition

Do you have any favorites?

I just saw that Zebo has made a post about a new book, published by Spinks. To my eye, their books have some of the most professional and beautiful covers....

The cover is essential. I worked for a NYC publisher and a professional design agency did all the covers. The pros know which typeface to select, how many sizes of that typeface to use, and even how to combine typefaces. They have a great knowledge of colors and how to combine these. It costs a lot to do all this so many numismatic books can't afford professional design. But believe me, a book cover done by a professional graphics agency stands out.

Interesting that we spend so much time here on the eye appeal of coins. It takes experience to do this and similarly a professional designer will look at thousands of book covers to develop some sort of artistic intuition.

Yes, the first book design is cluttered. The second is nicely done.

Would you keep a 5K coin in a 2x2 cardboard flip and scrawl the grade and type illegibly in pencil? I think not--that's why many like coins slabbed, either by the TPGs or the kind you can buy from coin supply houses. It adds beauty.

As Goldfinger notes, auction catalogs often have the best kind of professional design elements. The quality of the cover and layout must be as good as the coins being sold.

On 3/26/2023 at 1:49 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Have the economics changed with online books ?  I would think the lower cost might expand the audience.

Many of the books we deal with here -- including yours, Roger -- are NOT available on Amazon or from other established sellers.  Others are out-of-print or you have to buy used copies.  The information on these books, even decades old, is still valuable IMO.

I wonder if large online auction houses would consider a book section where they sell numismatic books for a fixed price. Previous iterations of Stack's Bowers offered many numismatic books at a nice price. Many were written by Dave B. It was one stop--buy the book and come back to buy the coin. Worked very well. They had a nice selection at the NYC store...

So many numismatic books are a labor of love. With the exception of a few large publishers, I suspect most don't even break even.

Always nice to see a new, well-researched coin book come out. I have a couple of other books by Spinks and the layout and photography are excellent.

I'll want to read this book.

Might you consider, instead of a white color as the background on the book jacket, a beige or "light gold" background?

Encouraged by what I've read here, I bought one of Roger Burdette's books (1909-150 and right away learned about a technical aspect of minting coins that I had never thought of--die radii. There's great stuff here about pennies and nickels and I'm looking forward later in the book to reading about the coins about Panama. I'm a foot-note-reading person and with the footnotes at the bottom of each page, it's easier to read these than flipping to the back of the book. There is an informative posting by David Lange further back on the Forum (2006) and this gives more  detailed information about the technical aspects of die radii--one can easily access this if one is interested in detailed information. Finally, I wonder if this concept might somehow be related to pattern recognition programs that might be used in the future to grade coins via computers.

I've been enjoying reading many posts on this forum and have gone back several years to read previous posts.

Best wishes to all.