Just received Early United States Dimes 1796-1837/A Reference Book of Their Types, Varieties and Rarity by Davis, Logan, Lovejoy, McCloskey and Subjack. Collecting Bust Quarters has peaked my interest in Capped Bust coins in general. In fact I have a back-burner partial collection of Capped Bust half dimes by variety. So now I've got books covering all the face values of silver Capped Bust coins (half dime, dime, quarter and half dollar). Now if I only had a wallet fat enough to match my interest.
I second this...Browning is so out of date it isn't funny. Same thing with Valentine for the half dimes. If you aren't already using it find a copy of Federal Half Dimes by Russ Logan and John McCloskey.
Yes, I use the Tompkins book plus I've got the Peterson book too. I ran into a contradiction between the two. Got to see if I can find it again. Yep, bought the Logan/McCloskey book several years ago. That's what I use for the half dimes. I also have the Valentine book but don't use it. Half dollars are safe from my grasp -- except for the coin in my type set. Maybe some day but I'm running short on those days. I'll restart my search on half dimes and continue looking for quarters I'm missing. Dimes will be next.
I have all the books as well, and don't collect any of them. I have lots of books on series that I don't collect.
There are many contradictions between the two books. Most notably the rarities for the varieties and also the die state progression (and even some die states themselves). I recall the Peterson book having a couple die state progressions that were clearly incorrect (cracks occurring out of order for example). Tompkins did much more research on die states and die marriages, so I would go with his data over the Peterson book hands down. For rarities it's tougher to determine which book is closer. Both have been collecting census data (and sales data for Tompkins) for a long time, though Tompkins data may be more comprehensive. For simplicity, you may want to just use the Tompkins book for this data as well.