I've been using the Krause 2011 Standard Catalog of World Coins 1901-2000, 38th Edition to find coins for my birth year set. I know tackling a job that large (2000+ pages) is subject to errors. But I ran into some that were driving me nuts. France 10 centimes of 1941. The 38th Edition lists 6 varieties. I have 4 and was trying to verify which ones I have. Three were easy but the fourth was driving me up the wall. I wanted to get it ID'ed so I'd know which 2 I was missing. Just couldn't get it done. BUT I have the 2016 Standard Catalog of World Coins 1901-2000, 43rd Edition on disc. It's a bit of a pain to use but in desperation I decided to take a look. BINGO!!! The disc only lists 5 varieties. I assume that's a correction from the older catalog. NOW I know which varieties I have and which 1 I'm missing. I'm breathing easier now. I'm sure others have found errors in the Krause catalogs. And it seems they correct them when they find out their error.
One more go-around with the Krause catalog on disc and I've got it figured out. There are five 1941 France 10 centimes varieties but it also appears that I only have three of them. Nothing like a couple hours work to ID a few $1 coins.
Krause is pretty good considering how broad their catalog is, but for any given country a specialized catalog is better. I'd be happy to make a list of Hungarian coinage for you for 1941 if you want to double check what you have.
The catalog says 6 coins dated 1941. Naturally I'm missing the 2 pricey ones: -- 1941 2 filler -- 1941 2 pengo/wavy base
Sounds right. The wavy 2 reverse was from a pattern die that was accidentally used. There were not many struck using that die.
I agree that Krause is good for a general catalog for many different countries. I specialize in 1600's to 1930's Italian coins and Krause is just not detailed enough. I use a catalog printed in Italy call "Gigante", it's in Italian and I can read enough Italian to use it. It's far superior for what I need.
The Krause catalog is good, but after Krause publications was sold to F & W publications starting with the 32 edition a lot of errors start creeping into the catalog, types being left out even whole countries being forgotten. One year they even put out a dvd afterward that had all the missing countries. Also to make more room they started dropping images and more minor varieties/types. The problem was F&W wasn't that interested in putting money into the catalog. By the time it reached the bankruptcy the staff for producing the 500+ years worth of catalogs and all the hundreds of thousands of listing was down to 8 people. I'm interested to see what happens next. In the dispersal of the assets one company bought the rights to publishing the standard catalogs, but a different company bought the database that the catalogs are produced from.
Since the bankruptcy sale, has anyone heard any news about the future of the Krause catalogs? As I collect most of the world, they are very useful to me. Yes, I have many specialized volumes for certain countries or regions, but the comprehensive nature of the K&M volumes makes then an important and convenient resource.
