ok ive been hanging on to coins and sets and stuff books and items like that.. I still have yet to find anything in this book that is useful .. and I noticed the few time I looked at it there where major errors and misnomers in the either description , numerologistics , or factuality this book as a reference is faulty in many ways but it was free for me.. how about you did you find any books that where very pointless in your numismatic library??
Rare coins featuring State Quarters? Give me a break! As a rule, any book that is free is intended to sell something that isn't. The only exception I have for this generalization is a book that was given to all the attendees at the NGC Luncheon at FUN one year.......The Complete Guide to Mercury Dimes by David Lange. Chris
ok, I'll spill. I often write book reviews for my podcast, The Coin Show. Subsequently, I also often get free copies of new books when I request them from publishers. I requested a book from Krause named U.S. Coins Close Up and I felt it was a HUGE disappointment because not only was it not named Up Close because of the in-depth facts on the coins, (there was little more than a paragraph on many), it wasn't named Up Close for the pictures of the coins, either. It merely featured a picture of each coin type ever made by the US Mint in black and white and in actual size. What the book does have is a great appendix full of large photographs of key date coins, beautifully illustrating the prime focal point of each. The appendix was better than the book!!! Maybe the appendix should have BEEN the book.
It is also important to be aware that many books, even those written by recognized authorities, have bad and or outdated information in them. If it's written in a book people tend to take it as factual. That all by itself can be and usually is a huge problem, for how does one tell good information from bad ? Simple answer you can't, unless you know more about the subject matter, or a particular portion of it, than the author does. Of course if you do, then why are you reading the book ? Simple answer to that too, so you can find out if there is anything in the book that you don't already know. And that brings us around to the OP's question. Are there books out there are pointless ? Of course there are, but that depends on what you, the reader know, or don't know. So for you it might be pointless, but for me it might not be. But the only way to find out is to read the book. I have several books that only contain a few tidbits of information that I did not already know from reading other books. Sometimes it's a single sentence, a paragraph, a page, even a chapter that turn out to be important because that information was not found in any other books. But by reading the combination of all the books you end up having a better understanding and knowledge than you would if you had only read one of them. That is why I always recommend that when you wish to study something, buy all the books you can find on the subject
