Hi, My collection has moved from U.S. coins to modern world coins in silver from about 1950 to 2010. What I need help with is what book would give me the best info on modern world coins that show the history,value,mintage and identification number...(KM#) I think..Thanks alot.Beck
The KM numbers are assigned by Krause Publications in their Standard Catalog of World Coins, originally edited by Krause & Mishler and often referred to simply as "Krause". For your purposes you need the 20th & 21st Century volumes, but not the three earlier ones. Try Amazon.com for used volumes, unless you need the latest SCWC guesses at valuation, some of which are fairly accurate but most of which range from way too low to way, way too high. Those two are published annually and the others every few years.
Yeah, like Hontanai said, if you wish KM numbers buy KM. They are the generic guidebooks of modern coinage. They will not go into great detail about the coinage, though. If you find yourself specializing in a certain country I would look at buying a book just on that country. This book will go into much greater detail about the circumstances of minting them, what they are commemorating, even if a lot never left the mint. There are quite a few circumstances where the published mintage is in KM, but KM doesn't tell you that many of those coins were melted later and therefor is very rare now. This kind of information can be invaluable, but you can realistically only expect it in a more norrow focused book, not something as broad as KM.
If you buy the 2009 or 2008 versions of World Coins 1901-2000 on Amazon.com, you may get discounts like 60%-70% off. Another possible way to get a book is to ask your local coin dealer(s) whether they have an older catalog that you can give/sell you. Normally they do because they now use the 2010 editions and later the 2011 editions.
I bought the 5 disk set from the Krause website for $99.00. It has all 5 edition 1600-1700 1701-1800 1801-1900 1901-2000 2000-date But i do miss flipping through the books lol.
