I used to own this book years ago and am considering purchasing another copy. What do people think of this book these days? I saw a copy at a coin show for $100 that would need to have work done on the binding, and almost snapped it up. Should I have? Edit: Of course I'm referring to Walter Breen's Complete Encyclopedia of US and Colonial Coins, but can't edit the title. Whoops.
I know the binding has issues. That's the only reason I considered a $100 copy with a failing binding. I'm really more concerned with what's between the covers.
The book was a massive undertaking, without doubt, and there is plenty of very useful information contained within it. However, a fair number of rarity ratings have been updated by more specialized books in the intervening years so the value of this aspect is diluted. Worse yet, in my opinion, is that Breen did not always reference his "facts" well and some of his conclusions, observations or statements that were written as though they were substantiated might have been better classified as guesses, hunches or biases. As such, I find the book of very limited utility.
I use it [the book] periodically. However, I found that Breen never met a fact that he couldn't make up. It is still useful. That said, $100 for a beat up copy is expensive.
On www.bookfinder.com there are over 90 used copies, the cheapest being $92., and upwards from there. Just plug "Walter Breen" into the "author" space and hit Search. There are also numerous copies of his other books (when you search only by author's name and not by title). So it is a moderately expensive book, but by no means a rare book.
I picked up a copy about 18 months ago for $80. In VG condition . Just got to hunt them down they can be found.
This guy was a very controversial personality in the numismatic world and I think that is where a lot of the value for this book comes from. I guess sometimes whats inside the book doesn't matter. At the Dalton show there was a copy in mint condition for $250. I passed it up for coins.
