Chester Krause and Clifford Mischler first published the Standard Catalog of World Coins through Chester Krause's firm Krause Publications back in 1972. Origiinally the coins were cataloged by Y numbers from R. S. Yeoman's two books Coins of the World, and Modern Coins of the World for coins dated after 1860 and by C numbers fro Craig's Coins of the World 1750 to 1850. From 1972 to 1985 it was a single volume that contained 19th and 20th century issues. After 1985 it was split into two volumes. Eventually the KM catalogs expanded to five volumes covering five centuries of world coins (17th through 21st century) three volumes for paper money (regular issues through 1964, Modern issues, and specialized issues) And one volume for Unusual Coins of the World that covers "pseudo-coins". Several years ago Krause Publications was sold to F&W Publications. At that point the quality of the catalogs started going down as F&W didn't want to put any money into the endeavor. Mainly as staff left they were not replaced. eventually it got down to the point where the entire nine volumes were being maintained, updated and layout set up for printing by a staff of just 8 people. In 2019 F&W filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. When the assets of the company were broken up and sold, one firm bought the rights to the books including the Standard Catalogs, but a different firm bought the rights to the database that the catalogs were published from. So one has the book rights but no data, and the other has the data but no right to publish the book. There was no 2020 edition published and who knows the Standard Catalog may be no more until someone else comes up with their own data. Last I knew the old Krause/Numismaster database can still be accessed for free online through the NGC World Coin Price Guide.
Had a lot of great responses on this. I just need to get with the flow of things and if my customers want KM numbers then by god I'll give them KM numbers. I kind of agree with the guy who says all price catalogs are worthless because in all reality a coins value is in the eye of the beholder.period. Thanks alot guys I have been educated