I'm looking for a basic book/guide for this area of numismatics. Is there such a text? Thanks in advance.
I suspect the topic is too big for any one book to do it justice! There may be the odd "coffee table" book that will talk loosely about the history of coinage across the world and provide a few pictures of good examples, but that hardly qualifies as a guide. You would constantly be finding coins that are not mentioned at all. The best fairly comprehensive guides for modern coins (1600 to date) are the Krause books (Standard Catalogues of Coins), one for each century from 1600. These are quite expensive though and are big (think old style telephone directories). You may be able to pick up back issues reasonably cheaply at a coin store or online. The alternative really is to home in on which countries or regions or types of coins you find interesting and go for books on them. Posting here will get recommendations for any given topic. (For instance, if you said "British Coins" I would point you to the Spinks "Coins of England and the United Kingdom", which comes out each year.)
If you are going to invest in the Krause Catalogs, do not buy new. Why pay $60+ for a new one when you can find one a couple issues old much much cheaper and most of the data is unchanged. One of the best books to look at is "The complete Illustrated Guide to Coins and Coin Collecting" by Dr. James Macay. Again, look for a used copy. https://www.ebay.com/itm/WORLD-ENCY...006904&hash=item2a98d7851b:g:ay0AAOSwmOJaKwAT I have found it to be very useful. You can find one used as low at $25 or lower, if you search. I found my copy at a local Half Price Books store for $7.98
It is easy to pick up old versions of SCWC for less than $10. Use Bookfinder.com. A very high level overview of coins of the world is the Coin Atlas. You can also find that for under $10 at Bookfinder. Here is a link to one I found for $8.48 shipped. https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=22479634097
You can use the NGC price guide if you know what the coin is: https://www.ngccoin.com/price-guide/world/ If you're not sure where to start on a particular coin, just ask here. Also, same as with Krause, don't put much faith in the listed values. Just use it for demographic and measurement info, as well as a relative idea of rarity and what the key dates are.
Depends on the goal...the Krause catalogs are great as a general perusal guide, but only go back so far. Or, if you have a specific area you are interested in, people could give more specific advice.
All of the above are good suggestions - try your local public library to browse the various numismatic books, see which ones you might like to own, then buy used ones on amazon or eBay - good luck & happy holidays
Oh that reminds me, I have the 2012-2013 editions of the 1801-1900 and 1901-2000 books on CD which I don't need. I never even used them, yours free if you want. Just PM me where to send them.
Here's one I came across in my own searches, but it's 21st century: Standard-catalog-of-world-coins-2001-date-8th-edition
