HK-131 1901 Evacuation of Boston So-Called Dollar

This medal was among the coins my father passed to me.  The bronze replica I have was distributed to Boston school children in 1901. My grandfather was fourteen years old and his family was living in Boston then, so it is quite possible that one of these was given to him. Unfortunately, it's not the one I have now as I sold that years before I knew what it was.

The reverse is a replica of a gold medal given to George Washington.Washington's family sold that in 1876 to a group of Bostonians who purchased it and immediately gave it to the City of Boston, intending it for the Boston Public Library. The medal is supposedly on display at the Boston Public Library each year on Washington's birthday.  I've never seen it, but it is said to weigh over 7 ounces, so it must be impressive.  This copper medal is 38 mm,; the gold medal is 68 mm (2.67 inches).

This medal is HK-131, a "so called dollar".

There are many restrikes of the original medal; see "Washington Before Boston Medal".

I found Celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of the Evacuation of Boston by the British Army  which describes the purchase of the medal among other celebrations of 1876.

Two people with "Lawrence" surnames contributed to the purchase of the gold medal ) but neither were my grandfather's father Herbert Myron Lawrence.  They could be relatives, but I do not know.  I believe Herbert Myron was in San Francisco at that time.

Note:  All my coins are in a safe deposit box.  I keep nothing in my home. 

Contests and giveaways: http://coins.aplawrence.com/2014/05/contests-and-giveaways.html

Collecting by Type

A fun and less expensive way to collect coins is by "type" rather than by date. That is, rather than trying to find or buy a complete set of Lincoln Cents, you might have ONE Lincoln cent that would represent the whole series. Of course for U.S. coins you'd also have an Indian Head Cent, a Flying Eagle Cent and a Large Cent.

That would be a basic "type set" of U.S. cents and needn't cost a lot of money if you are content to have circulated examples.

Most type set collectors would take it a bit farther. For example, Lincoln Cents had a "wheat" reverse until 1959, at which time it changed to the Lincoln Memorial. You'd probably also want the four special  reverses of 2009 and the "E Pluribus" design that started in 2010.  

Most would also include one of the "steel cents" of 1943. These were made to conserve copper for wartime use.

That would seem to cover the major varieties of Lincoln cents, but one more is often added: that's the 1909 issue with "V.D.B" under the wheat ears on the reverse. Those were the designer's initials - Victor D. Brenner, but many people objected to him "signing" so prominently, so later that year his initials were moved to a less visible location under Lincoln's shoulder (tip a penny and you will see them there still - though you may need a magnifier!).

By the way, our one cent coins are technically "cents", not "pennies". Some folks make a big deal about that.

There are a few more minor varieties to consider. In 1944, and again in 1983, Lincoln Cents changed their composition. Lincoln cents were bronze (95% copper, 5% tin and zinc) from 1909 to 1942, steel in '43, without tin from '44 to '58 (though 1944-1946 are more brass) and then with zinc and tin again until 1959. In 1962 this was changed to 97.5% zinc with a light coating of copper - which is why modern pennies get really ugly looking very quickly.

You could carry this much farther. There are varieties where the first two letters of AMERICA are nearly touching or not - some would make sure to include examples. There are also large and small date varieties of 1960 and some other years and the famous "double die obverse" of 1955 (and other years).

I've only talked about Lincoln cents - there are multiple varieties of Indian cents, Flying Eagle cents and Large cents. There are also "patterns" - transitional coins never intended for general circulation.

When you start including older coins like the Large Cents in a type set, the cost can start to mount. Few of us could afford a 1793 "chain" cent in anything but the poorest condition and even that could run thousands of dollars.

I used a holder much like this for my first Type Set

Other ways to collect coins

There are also "Commemoratives" - coins issued for special events, like the 1893 Columbian Half Dollar and even that 2009 "Log Cabin" cent. Many would include some of these in a type set.

There are Civil War Tokens, Colonial Coinage and coinage from "private" mints - and that's just the United States. British coinage goes back much farther and Roman coins can be older still and yet still be common enough for collectors.

If we start collecting nickel and dime types, quarters, halves and dollars, as well as the odd two cent and three cent pieces, you could spend a fair amount of money amassing even the most basic set.

As to gold coins, that really starts to get expensive - even without considering the rare types and varieties.

However, collecting by type is really up to you. You might not want to collect anything before some arbitrary date - your birth year, for example. Or you might limit your collection to one series - Lincoln cents or Jefferson nickels. It's up to you.

Here's an idea: a "Coins of the world" type set, or even a "Copper coins of the world". This could be great fun and very educational.

How about "Coins with famous people" or "Coins with animals"? Or "Coins of my birth year"?

Very specialized collections might be "Coins made at the San Francisco mint" (that one could set you back a few dollars!).

The possibilities are only limited by your imagination and of course your wallet in some cases.

Note:  All my coins are in a safe deposit box.  I keep nothing in my home. 

Contests and giveaways: http://coins.aplawrence.com/2014/05/contests-and-giveaways.html

Early U.S. Coinage

Not many of us can afford to own examples of the earliest U.S. coins. Mintage figures were often very low and some are so scarce that it is difficult even to find pictures of them, never mind have an opportunity to own.

By the way, many of the coin pictures here are Courtesy of Heritage Auction Galleries/www.ha.com. If you are one of those people who can afford this sort of collecting (or if you just enjoy looking at things like this), Heritage Auctions is a great place to browse.

In March of 1791, Congress resolved that a mint should be established and that the President (then George Washington, of course) should make that happen. Notice the simple language and lack of detailed instruction of the resolution below; it's very different from any Act of Congress you'd read today. Basically, Congress wanted a Mint and the rest was up to the President.

III. Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That a mint shall be established under such regulations as shall be directed by law.

Resolved, That the President of the United States be, and he is hereby authorized to cause to be engaged, such principal artists as shall be necessary to carry the preceding resolution into effect, and to stipulate the terms and conditions of their service, and also to cause to be procured such apparatus as shall be requisite for the same purpose.

The Mint was seen as very necessary. This wasn't just national pride. There were coin shortages and the coins that were in circulation were a jumbled mix of State and foreign coins that varied widely in size, weight and value. Anyone who has been puzzled by currency or has accidentally paid too much in a foreign country is sure to appreciate how confusing this must have been for the Colonists. You might have been offered payment in French coins one minute and Massachussets shillings another. Federal coinage was an answer to a very real problem.

The actual construction and operation of that Mint was a year away and so were instructions from Congress as to what sort of coins were to be produced. In the meantime, proposals were made and some pattern coins were struck at private mints.

The Fugio Cent

One coin, the Fugio Cent, was authorized by the earlier Continental Congress of 1787. The design, presumed to be by Benjamin Franklin, was the same as paper money created in 1776.

Surprisingly, considering that only about 400,000 of these were minted (by James Jarvis, who obtained the contract through a bribe), uncirculated examples are not difficult to find. We know that the Bank of New York acquired a full mint keg (possibly 15,000 coins or more) of these in 1788 and only started disbursing them (to favored customers) in 1926. They still had coins left as late as 1948.

There were also restrikes in the mid 1800's. These are known as "New Haven Restrikes", though they were actually most likely made in Waterbury, Connecticut, not New Haven. As there are multiple die varieties, these may have been restruck at other mints also.

Fugio restrike from my collection

The original mintage was supposed to be for 300 tons (probably about 30 million coins) - imagine how common these would be today had that production been achieved!

There was also a dollar coin (commonly called the Continental Dollar) of similar design. No contract was ever issued to produce these, so all examples are either patterns or much later restrikes made in 1876.

Modern restrike of the Continental Dollar from my collection

Nova Constellatio

These designs were contracted by Robert Morris, the one and only Superintendent of Finance the United States ever had.

There has been disagreement over whether these should be referred to as "Nova Constellatio" or "Constellatio Nova".

The dates of 1783 almost certainly do not mean that these were made then. No references exist before 1785, so those dates were probably meant to be symbolic of the 1783 Continental Congress rather than to mean the date of issue. However, there are also coins dated 1785 and 1786, so perhaps coinage was intended for 1783.

These coins did circulate and large numbers were minted, but they were produced in England, not the United States. It is estimated that several million of these were made, yet it is less common than those figures might suggest. That may be partly due to being driven out by heavier weight copper cents and they were actually made illegal in New York. We know that private mints bought up many coins to reuse for new coinage, so that certainly contributed to scarcity.

Nova Constellatio: Courtesy of Heritage Auction Galleries http://www.ha.com

First U.S. Mint Coins

The first official coins actually struck were half dimes. Some 1,500 were produced in July of 1792 by John Harper, while the Mint itself was still under construction. Although not officially produced at the Mint, mint personnel apparently supervised this coinage.

Many references state that George Washington supplied a hundred dollars worth of "silver plate" for these coins, but not everyone accepts that as fact.

The design is somewhat crude, and although some assumed the figure on the front might be Martha Washington, in fact it was symbolic of Liberty. Washington and probably all patriots of the time had a definite aversion to monarchy and what they called the "cult of personality" - they did not believe that individuals should be idolized by appearing on coins.e

(In 1909, the first violation of their opinions in that area was the minting of the Lincoln cent - no doubt all the Founding Fathers would have been appalled, but we have been illustrating our coinage with national heroes ever since.)

Some numismatists insist that these coins should be considered patterns rather than actual issues. They point to the fact that George Washington handed out many of these to friends and dignitaries as keepsakes. However, these definitely were intended for circulation and many worn pieces are known, so some of the coins certainly saw real use.

Worn 1792 Half Disme: Courtesy of Heritage Auction Galleries http://ha.com

The Large Cents of 1792 and 1793

The 1792's are particularly interesting because some of them contained silver, either as a noticeable plug in the center (the "Silver Center Cent") or mixed in ("fusible alloy cents"). The idea was that the silver would be worth 3/4 of one cent and that the copper would make up the rest, giving the coin an intrinsic value of one cent while keeping its size down.

As these coins are rather rare, and testing actual metal content is naturally frowned upon, all of the non-plug varieties are referred to as ‘fusible alloy’ regardless of what their actual mixture might be. A larger version was made with only copper.

These were intended as patterns, yet lower grade coins exist. Perhaps they were spent at later times?

The 1793's were definitely for circulation. The early "chain" design had 36,103 pieces struck and when the rather ugly design was changed to the "wreath" version, another 63,000 or so of those were produced.

I once owned a very well worn "wreath" 1793. The date was gone, but it was easily identifiable because the "Liberty Cap" cents of 1793 were a much different design. Even though this was many years ago, and the condition so poor, I paid more than $100.00 for the coin. Today, a similar piece might fetch $500 or more.

While public sentiment was strongly against the wild haired "Liberty" of those first coins, it does have a certain attraction in spite of its crudeness. To my mind, the later "Liberty Cap" cents are actually less attractive.

1795 gold

The first gold was deposited at the Mint in February of 1795 by Moses Brown of Boston. He deposited a little over $2,270.00 in gold ingots and was given silver coins in payment.

The policy at the time was "free coinage". That is, you could bring silver or gold bullion to the Mint and they would turn it into coins at no cost to you. However, if you were not willing to wait, as Moses apparently was not, you'd pay a fee of one-halt percent.

I assume Moses Brown was probably the Brown referred to in this Wikipedia article. If so, he may have needed the coins for his various businesses. That $2,270.00 was roughly equivalent to $40,000.. today, so it was hardly a small amount of money, yet no great fortune either. It might be perfectly reasonable that he needed the silver coins for business. Given the weight of a 1794 half dime (20.8 grains), that pile of coins would have only been 130 lbs or so.

However, the total mintage of silver for all of 1794 and 1795 was only 86,416 half dimes ($4,314.00 worth) and there were only 5,300 half dollars and 1,758 dollars made in 1794, so however Moses mixed his take, he went home with a significant portion of the Mint's output!

Seven hundred and forty four gold half-eagles ($5 coin) were delivered to the Treasury on July 31st, 1795. The total mintage for the year was 8,707 of these. I personally think this particular coin is one of the most beautiful ever made. The designer was Robert Scot, who was Chief Engraver of the Mint. His eyesight was failing even when he was appointed, which might account for the ugliness of the half dime, but I find nothing ugly about this coin.

Replicas

As so few of us can afford most of these rarities, replicas are often available so that we can have something more tangible than a picture. The Hobby Protection Act of 1973 made these reproductions (all stamped "COPY" on one side or the other) legal.

Also see:

The Secret History of the First U.S. Mint

Note: All my coins are in a safe deposit box. I keep nothing in my home.

Contests and giveaways: http://coins.aplawrence.com/2014/05/contests-and-giveaways.html

Silver bullion and U.S. Silver coinage

On September 9th, 1963 the price of pure silver hit $1.293 per ounce. That was a new record for the 20th century and it caused a problem for the U.S. Treasury Department: coins in circulation were now worth their face value. That is, counting the cost of refining to pure silver (coinage was only 90% silver at that time), a silver dollar in the palm of your hand was actually worth one dollar for the value of the silver in it.

There were no silver dollars actually in circulation then, but dimes, quarters and half dollars also contained 90% silver. Silver dollars did turn up now and then - they were the chips used at casinos and were popular as Christmas presents.

Ten dimes would have weighed just a tiny bit less than one silver dollar, so even the minor coins were in danger of being worth more than their face value.

The end of silver coinage

It was the rising price of silver that caused us to stop using that metal and change (in 1965) to the "clad" coins you might have in your pocket right now. Today, with silver prices sometimes 40 times higher than they were then, that may seem like the most obvious and necessary thing to do, but there was not complete agreement on that back then.

Make more Silver Dollars

In hindsight, it seems almost incredible that two Montana Senators (Mike Mansfield and Lee Metcalf) proposed a bill that would start minting silver dollars again. Their solution for the price problem was to reduce the silver content to 80%, which obviously would not have solved the problem for very long. Silver was $1.63 an ounce in 1970 and surged way up in 1980, only to settle down to the $4-$5 range for a number of years. Those 80% silver dollars would have been worth far more than face value.

The Senator's interest was because Montana was and is a mining State. The more silver demand, the better for Montana.

A "fantasy" piece from Moonlight Mint (overstruck on a genuine peace dollar)

Demand for Silver

Silver has many uses (see Wikipedia for details). One use that was quite strong then was photography; that has diminished greatly, but at the time we are talking about, most people expected that use to only increase.

However, the demand I'm speaking of was Silver Certificates. We don't have these today - they were no longer produced starting in 1965. These originally had the following promise:

"This certifies that there is on deposit in the Treasury of the United States of America (number) silver dollar(s) payable to the bearer on demand."

That was later changed to

"This certifies that there is on deposit in the Treasury of the United States of America (number) dollar(s) in silver payable to the bearer on demand."

That change turned out to be important, as we will see.

You see, if you did march down to the Treasury and demand that they make good, they would have paid you in Silver Dollars. With the increase in silver prices, people started doing just that.

Casinos

As I mentioned, casinos were big users of silver dollars. First, that was the tradition. Chips such as are used now are easier to counterfeit and (of course) cost money to manufacture.

With rising prices, silver dollars started exiting casinos, so of course casino owners gathered up silver certificates and went to cash them in.

In April of 1964, those casinos cashed in silver certificates for some 18 million silver dollars.. and hauled them back to Nevada.

Numismatic value

The Treasury had plenty of silver to hand out - there were some 1.8 billion dollars in silver certificates outstanding in 1963 and there were 1.7 billion ounces of silver stockpiled. That was not a problem.

What was a problem, or an opportunity (depending on your point of view) was that many of the silver dollars being handed out had numismatic value - that is, they were valuable to coin collectors.

For an example, until 1962 the 1903-O ("O" meaning that it was produced at the New Orleans Mint) was a very rare coin in uncirculated conditions. In that year, many thousands of that date and mint-mark came out of Treasury vaults, driving the price down so much that for a while, they were selling for no more than any other common date.

Cherry picking rare dates prior to silver prices climbing sometimes involved trading in for a $1,000 bag, removing any rare dates and then returning the rest to the Treasury - that must have been annoying. As prices started to rise, no returns were made.

An ounce of silver

The numismatic potential was not lost on our Government. They halted handing out silver dollars and instead told people to take there silver certificates to Assay Offices in New York or San Francisco. There, the bearer would be handed an unmarked brown envelope containing .77 ounce of silver (one dollars worth). Needless to say, not too many folks were interested in that trade!

At this point, the Treasury had only about 3 million dollars remaining. This was also when Senator Mansfield made a passionate speech on the Senate floor asking Congress to "rescue a major American tradition" and strike 45 million new 80% silver dollars.

That law actually passed. President Lyndon Johnson signed it into law in 1965 and - perhaps even more amazing is that in that year, the U.S. Mint in Denver struck over 300,000 dollars dated 1964! These were remelted and not released to circulation (though rumors of very illegal 1964 silver dollars turn up now and then).

The GSA Sales

It was not until 1970 that Congress figured out what to do with the remaining silver dollars. The coins were sorted, graded, packaged and offered for sale in 1972. There was not tremendous interest, so that was shelved and tried again in 1979. This time there was more demand and all were sold by 1980, though not without controversy.

So, there are no more bags of silver dollars sitting in Treasury vaults.

Silver today

Decades later, everything has changed. Casinos use chips and often just electronic cards that store your money while you are in the casino. Digital cameras have cut the photographic use of silver in half and it is still falling. You will almost never find a silver coin in circulation (I did find a dime this year, though).

Is silver a good investment? At today's prices, it may not be - though I do think it's not at all a bad idea to have a few silver coins around in case of economic collapse. I like the older "Mercury" dimes for that. They are apt to have numismatic value and are therefore slightly more expensive, but they are easily recognizable as being silver. That isn't true for the later Roosevelt series, which became "clad" in 1965 and therefore require closer examination.

A 50 coin roll of those Mercury dimes might run you around $150 or so. If you can afford it, a few 1/10 ounce gold coins would be nice too, but if you are trying to buy food in a time of economic collapse, a tenth ounce of gold is a lot to pay for a meal. A silver Mercury dime might be just about right.

You can also buy 1 ounce bars of .999 silver. These are a bit more bulky than dimes, but their value would naturally be higher - a bar like that might buy you safe lodging for a week.

I personally wouldn't recommend silver as an investment - there are still tremendous hoards of coins and silver bars. However, don't trust any investment advice I give: I sold almost all my gold in 2006 when the price was less than half what it is today!

Note: All my coins are in a safe deposit box. I keep nothing in my home.

Contests and giveaways: http://coins.aplawrence.com/2014/05/contests-and-giveaways.html

Better digital photos from your iPhone

I'd like to be able to take better pictures of my coins. At least two things prevent that, the most important being that the best camera I own is that in my iPhone.  The second impediment is that I am almost completely clueless about photography, film or digital.

As I'm not about to spend hundreds of dollars on a camera that I don't know how to use, I assumed that iPhone would be the best I could do for now and forever.  However, yesterday I happened to read about a new camera app made possible by IOS 8.   It's $1.99 from iTunes and it gives you more control over your IOS camera.

The app gives you that control, but it doesn't explain how to use it.  Their FAQ is rudimentary at best. Fortunately, I found this introductory article helpful and of course Google can be mined for much more.

Can it help me take better coin photos?  I think so. Here's a shot straight from my iPhone 4S camera app.  The coin is just a cull I carry in my pocket collection. I used my Cheap Photo Rig to take this. It's a decent photo and is as good as I expect from that phone.

Here is the same coin, same lighting, same rig, same phone, but using the Manual camera app and a bit of near clueless futzing by me.  There is no question that it is sharper. Trust me: I have no idea if it could be even better; I just fiddled around until it looked good to me.

There's probably more I could do if I had half a clue, but even so that is a big improvement.

Here's the same coin taken with the Camera Plus App.  That's much better than the native app too.

Note: All my coins are in a safe deposit box. I keep nothing in my home.

Contests and giveaways: http://coins.aplawrence.com/2014/05/contests-and-giveaways.html

Guess the grade and all that

I was amused this week by a "guess the grade" post at a Facebook
coin collectors group.   The coin was a common date Indian Head cent.

I guessed AU-58, but I was the only person to think so. One guess was as high as MS-65!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2204738423/10152591065958424/

The coin turned out to be AU-58 but "Details" because of recoloring.  I didn't like the color, but didn't say anything because digital photographs can be very subjective with regard to that. As I said after the grade had been revealed, "No, the grading is accurate. The recoloring is hard to pick up from a photo as variations in lighting can change that radically. ANACS saw it in hand."

Someone commented that they didn't like ANACS grading, but in fact the coin was almost a perfect match for the AU-58 photo at PCGS Photograde!

Take a look at these photos on the right. These are all the very same coin, photographed under different conditions of lighting. Two are straight from my iPhone and two had some additional adjustments with iPhoto.

If I posted these at different times and asked people for grading opinions, they'd each attract different answers, and probably some comments about color too.  My bet would be that the last one down would be seen as the highest, but of course that's nonsense: they are all the same coin.

None of the photos look like the coin actually does "in hand".  Whenever I see one of those "Guess the Grade" or "Has this coin been cleaned" posts, I keep this in mind: photos lie, and photos by unprofessional photographers are almost certainly not representing true color.

Photos can hide things.  I have a proof Eisenhower Dollar that photographs beautifully, but in hand there are obvious "milk spots" in the fields.  A 1955 Franklin have shows rather unattractive toning in a photo, but in natural light it looks quite good.
You should keep all that in mind when buying coins over the Internet. Photos at high end auction houses are likely to be good representations, but photos by eBay sellers may not be and may even be artificially doctored to be deceptive.

Don't be fooled by color in photos. It's not necessarily right.

Note: All my coins are in a safe deposit box. I keep nothing in my home.

Contests and giveaways: http://coins.aplawrence.com/2014/05/contests-and-giveaways.html

Review: Cherrypickers Guide to Rare Die Varieties of United States Coins (Digital Editions)

If you want this, you need Volumes 1 and 2 to cover all denominations. Unfortunately, there is a somewhat limited market, so these are pricey: even the digital editions will cost you $40 for both.  I do not NOT recommend these - if you are going to buy them, buy the physical books unless you want these so that you can conveniently carry them to shows or wherever.  Those are the only circumstances where I would recommend the digital version.

I'm a fan of digital and try to buy all my books that way now, but when a digital book is done this badly, I just can't recommend it. It's a shame that such expensive titles are so poorly done!

By the way, these are Kindle format. You do not need to own a Kindle; Amazon has free Kindle Reader software for almost anything.

Problems:

First, it's obvious that they didn't make any effort to reformat the text for digital.

That 1855 heading should have started on the next screen. Leaving hangers like this is not just ugly, it can also be confusing and there's no reason for it. Kindle books have been around long enough that there are now people who specialize in offering reformatting services to get it right. Turning out junk like this is inexcusable for a major publishing company - especially at these prices.


Second, one of the obvious advantages of digital is that good photos can be included. These are not good photos - they are all black and white and when you zoom into them, the poor resolution is quite evident.

The books are also poorly indexed. It's difficult to find things (that fault also exists in the print edition). Digital search could overcome that, but the problem is inconsistency in text descriptions, making some searches fail when they should not. Authors need to be consistent for digital search to work well!


The next fault is that "low interest" varieties have been removed. That's fine, but look at this:

Only one of the 11-D Repunched Mint Marks is still listed in the book itself. They are shown only in these tables. Suppose you found one that wasn't the one described? Is it one of the low interest varieties (502 and 503)? Or maybe it's something yet unknown, but this won't help you, will it? An accompanying website listing all varieties could fix that and the content is obviously available from the older editions - do they expect us to buy all those also?  There is really no excuse for this with digital - you don't have weight or size constraints, so data like that should be included.

Finally, listings stop at different dates in different series. Are there no dime die varieties after 2004? You can't be sure if this is all you have to go by: dimes stop in 2004, but other series go on later. These issues would be true for the print editions also, of course.

All in all, an expensive and very poorly executed book. There are online resources that are much easier to use.

However, at least it is digital - most numismatic authors are  afraid of theft and won't consider it.

I've sold ebooks and made good money from it. Yes, I assume there was some theft, but as there were no production costs other than my typing, I'm also sure that I made out far, far better than I would have otherwise. With a very esoteric subject (Unix Troubleshooting, anyone?) and being an unknown author completely dependent on my own website, I cleared around $5,000 with zero outlay.

Then I discovered Amazon and put it up there.  I picked up a few hundred dollars more at $19.95 and then as sales dwindled off, reduced it to $2.99.  I STILL get sales years later even though the book is totally out of date and I am still an unknown name.  It's not much - $10 or so dribbling in now and then, but it adds up.

There are so many advantages: easy revisions, good pictures, high profit - I think numismatic authors who won't do this are really being short sighted.   You can serialize ebooks so that if there is theft you can find the source but in my experience, it's too little to fret over.

For existing books, you do have to consider reformatting for ebooks. If you just leave the same pagination, it can come out ugly - these e-versions of thee Cherry Pickers Guides are a good example of laziness producing a crappy result.  Done right, however, you get something far better than a print book and as mentioned earlier there are now people who specialize in that kind of reformatting for fairly short money.

I won't buy a print book now unless I HAVE to have it.  For many numismatic books, I'd buy an ebook version, but I don't need it enough to buy the print. It's not a matter of price; it's the convenience of having it on my iPad or phone wherever I am.

But most numismatic authors are opposed and it will probably stay like that until the next generation.

Buy this book at Amazon and help me support this site!

Note: All my coins are in a safe deposit box. I keep nothing in my home.

Contests and giveaways: http://coins.aplawrence.com/2014/05/contests-and-giveaways.html