I voted for "Brewster's Millions".............None of the Above! It's practically impossible to say that one "type-specific" book is better than another because it is comparing apples to oranges. For me, the best all-around guide will always be the Red Book of United States Coins because it provides information about every coin that has ever been made or used in the US and is an invaluable resource for novice and veteran collectors alike. Chris
For US coins, I would vote for Walter Breen's book. To me its basically the Red Book on steroids. The other books in your poll are all specialist books, wonderful to have and should be owned by anyone specializing in those areas, but too specific to be "the best book".
One simple book describing all the coins & currency of the entire World (of which the USA is part) might be Warman's Coins And Paper Money book by Allen Berman. The book basically covers items from 700 BC to present in one easy-to-read volume. For US coins I would go with my Breen book.
I would say, though, that this book is SO incomplete as to not be useful. When 99% of all types of coins you may ever see is not even covered, I would question its value. However, I have the same reservations of a book of similar size that would even attempt to cover "just" ancient greek coins, let alone anything else. Sometimes a book can be so general as to not really be of very much help. You end up thinking 99% of all coins in existence are "great rarities". Just my opinion.
I hear you & I agree with you. You & I (and a bunch of others here) have knowledge of coins. We also have access to our specialty books. There is little that the Warman's book can do for us. IMO the Warman's book provides basic information (about all numismatic items) that you & I take for granted. If you have the Warman's book handy, take a quick read & think about how useful it might be to someone that doesn't have a ticket on the clue bus. That person (without the ticket) may have a coin from Switzerland, a Morgan dollar, an Iraq 500 Dinar note, a Civil War token, or an encased postage stamp. That person might glean some useful information about his item from the Warman’s book.
I don't recall. Coincidentally, I need to put all my books into a new book case tonight. I'll take a look at the Warman's book. Are you interested in a particular commemorative world coin?
Going to work on a set of Olympic commemoratives featuring weightlifters but information about the currency of the United Kingdom and Korea would also be a great benefit to me.
I would say the Krause catalog of world coins, (one per century), would be of utmost value to you sir. It is similar to the Warman book idea of Collect89, but more useful. The are called "phone books" for a reason, each century is HUGE. But, they are the most used guides for world coins. If it helps, most libraries carry them, at least the 20th century volume. I would start there if I were you.
If I were to pick between these three coins book and could only have one, I would pick the cherrypickers guide.
