How often do you replace your old coin books? I get a new one every couple of years-Is that often enough or do coin values change significantly enough from year-to-year?
Sometimes the published values change a great deal from year to year for specific dates or grades, but I only replace my redbook every other year. I only ever purchased one blue book for some research I was doing at the time, and that was a few years back. Personally, I think the blue book is only useful if you plan to liquidate a large quantity of coins, and plan to do it through a coin dealer for the easy transaction. The redbook is fairly inexpensive, so I wouldn't mind replacing that issue nearly as much as a Standard Catalog... My Krause book is from 2003, and I don't think I will probably upgrade it for another couple of years. They are just too expensive to replace with every edition, and the used market is nonexistant.
I buy a new Red Book every year, both to stay up-dated, and also to hopefully complete my Red Book collection someday. I have most of them.
I buy a Red Book everyfew years to use when I'm buying a collection....I will use a RB thats a few years old and most of the time its right about what dealers are paying. Speedy PS--Yes I have seen the NEW Red Book!
I like the book that Coin World puts out because it contains "prices" for more grades than the Red Book. This makes it useful to identify the grade at which the prices jump to stratospheric levels, which is useful to know if you are collecting coins in circulated grades or looking for relative bargains. Interestingly, the 1997 book contains prices that eerily match the prices being paid today for many coins, while highlighting what might be considered "overpriced" today. Spooky.
I had my 1999 Red Book until just last month. I don't care about the prices at all. I like having the reference to the different series and sometimes there discussions in there are somewhat interesting. I use the Numismatic News and Coin Values for discovering retail pricing trends and the Greysheet for real price valuations on my collection.
