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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cplradar, post: 7989720, member: 108985&quot;]So, after all the discussion, I decided to pick of the Breen&#039;s Encyclopedia.&nbsp; I got a clean copy for about $20.00 on Abes books.&nbsp; It is huge and I tried to read some of it on the Subway, but that proved very difficult as it is just so massive and heavy.&nbsp; I started out with the entry for the Buffalo Nickles.&nbsp; Much of what I read I had heard before, and I suppose that the entry has been repeated almost to the point that some of it is folk law.</p><p><br /></p><p>One thing is certain, Breen was no fan of Barber, and he makes that clear as dirt.&nbsp;&nbsp; Thew minute detail in the descriptions and the entry covers a lot of what I find monotonous detail which I have zero interest in.&nbsp; which is not to say that others might not be interested.&nbsp; But honesty, I couldn&#039;t care less about Mint politics a full 90 years after most of the players are dead, and the details have so little consequences on the coins development and what we are trying to collect.&nbsp;&nbsp; There are other interesting things I might have been interested in which he didn&#039;t cover.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>One thing though, is that if this is all original research, it is an extraordinary effort.&nbsp; Some things he wrote are just ramblings... for example, &quot;Fraser chose to depict on the rev, not a European buffalo but an American Bison... and my reaction is &quot;Really - in what universe would we have a nickel with a Buffalo from Europe?&quot;&nbsp; And then he tops it off by excusing the public for not distinguishing between Buffalo and Bison.&nbsp; It is a waste of ink.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>There is some discussion on the &quot;Monstrous Fuss&quot; by vending machine makers.&nbsp; This could have been covered in a single sentence instead of a quarter of a page.&nbsp; And he throws about judgemental&nbsp; adjectives like this about.&nbsp; What possibly can qualify as a &quot;Monstrous Fuss&quot; when it comes to designing a coin.&nbsp; It would have been suffice to say that various business interests lobbied for design changes and in the end the mint put them aside and went forward with its 1913 design.&nbsp; Then he discusses in detail his view of the Barber changes in the coins and does as far as to classify that as a whole other coin.&nbsp; It is personal and petty, and mostly not that professional.&nbsp; &nbsp; Instead of making it clear what the different patterns were and how to differential them, he talks in circles on the topic.&nbsp; In the end, the meat of the entry includes 5 1913 designs, including two prototypes without the F, the proof with the F and the regular issue with an F.</p><p><br /></p><p>The write up for the Fraser-Barber coin from 1913-1938 is even longer and more convoluted.&nbsp; There is a lot of information there, but god help you to find it if you ever need it.&nbsp; It is completely disorganized and jumps around in a disorientating way.&nbsp; I don&#039;t like it use of short hand abbreviations in the work, either.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Unfortunately, professional jealousy reared it stupid head, and Mint Engraver Charles E. Barber could not bear to leave well enough alone&quot;.&nbsp; This is a personal expression of opinion that should never be a professional work.&nbsp; If you read this, and never views the coins, you would think that the Buffalo Nickel after the Barber intervention was as different as Daffy Duck and Donald Duck.&nbsp; It is still essentially the same coin, not that I am defending Barber and the changes he made.&nbsp; He seemingly randomly throws in a discussion on the proof version, which could have been organized into its own section to make i all clearer.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>I studies this for a couple of days and moved on the SLQs.&nbsp; In retrospect, Breens brutal and judgemental assault on the political groups that were offended buy the nudity of the coin are more serious than the comical way they read.&nbsp; The way he rights it, you would think he was there at the time, which is sad considering the retrospective knowledge that Breen was a terrible pedophile and a sexual predictor. </p><p><br /></p><p>He does make some interesting observations about the mintage of full heads and die wear, claiming that it seems unlikely that full heads were the product of new dies, but exceptional strikes.</p><p><br /></p><p>For me, I don&#039;t care how the leaves are 0.2 mm longer on one die than another or that a mint mark is slightly to the left or the right etc etc.&nbsp; It is not how I collect coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>It is a ton of work, but he needed a real editor to organize this martial and cut out the irrelevant diatribes. Honestly, to the more part I would stick to the red book with is cleaner and much better organized.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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