I'm looking into getting the Krause catalog for world coins. I see they have released new versions and I also see I need to get two of them since they only cover coins by 100 years. The problem is this, these books are pretty expensive and for me to buy both in one shot is pretty hard. I don't see any used ones around either Should I look for the older versions or is there something special in the new versions I should know about?
The only change is new years are added as they occur and price adjustments are made... most would agree that their prices aren't that useful so as far as coin identification and figuring out key dates or some varieties an older edition will do just fine.
If price is a factor and you need a guide NGC has the complete world coin price guide listed on their site for free through numis master I find it to be incredibly handy and a time saver when searching for hard to find coins as I can just type in the year and denomination and it'll give me matching countries this can be found under the research tab on the home page.
Picked up my 19th and 20th century Krause books through estate auctions for about $12 apiece. Another web site to check out is http://worldcoingallery.com/
Yes and no. Hundreds of collectors find mistakes in Krause every year and report them to the publisher. The mistakes are corrected the with the following edition. I used to report a few dozen a year myself, every year. And that was just the ones I found by accident.
True sir, but I bet 99% of collectors will do just fine with an older edition. I update mine about once a decade. If you research prior editions, and are patient on Ebay, you can get an editions a few year old for not much money.
I agree, my copies were purchased new but are quite old now I used to sell my old copies to forum members for shipping.
Thanks for all the advice. I will keep my eye open for older cheap copies, until then I will use the sites listed.
