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Standard Catalog of World Coins

Started by Figleaf, March 26, 2006, 10:19:13 AM

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Figleaf

The best known catalogue of modern coins is Standard Catalog of World Coins, originally by Chester Krause and Clifford Mishler and therefore known as KM. It comes in five parts, for the 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st century.

Strong points of KM are a wealth of illustrations and a superb encyclopedic part. Its weakest points are inconsistency in the order of listings, weak or missing descriptions (though better in every new edition) and a blind eye for pseudo coins. All in all, serious collectors of modern coins cannot go without, even if they already have a competing catalog.

The home of these and other books from Krause Publications is here.

Figleaf
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

Willy68

#1
Hi Figleaf,

If you want to have a catalog without the Pseudo coins try this one: Collecting worldcoins



It covers worldcoins found in circulation and has the pseudo's left out. Also a Krause publication so it features all Krause's well known items. You can say this one is for collectors, the previously mentioned Standard catalog of worldcoins is for professional traders.

Link: Here

Willy
Every circulated coin tells a story. A commemorative coin tells a sad story: "The coin who never really was a coin....."

Figleaf

Problem being that KM's definition of pseudo coins may not be the same as mine. Nevertheless, if you are just starting in world coins, this is a pretty good basis.

One excellent way to start is trying to get one coin from each member of the UN. Taking the UN membership list will spare you the trouble of buying coins from fictitious "nations" such as the Keeling Islands.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

Willy68

That's indeed a nice way to start a worldcoin collection.

An easy way to get the entire list of UN members is Wikipedia (What else?? ;)) or you can try the UN webpage.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_member_states

Willy



Every circulated coin tells a story. A commemorative coin tells a sad story: "The coin who never really was a coin....."

Figleaf

The 5th edition of KM 19th century is out. I like this version, if only for its listing of trade tokens from e.g. Australia, British Guiana, Canada, Guernsey, Jersey and New Zealand. For me, coins are about money and trade tokens are money, so I think they ought to be listed. Too bad the tokens of e.g. Ceylon are not listed. Those of Ireland and great Britain are mentioned, but not listed, which makes sense, because these series are very long.

Some of the encyclopedic sections are enhanced also. A prime example is the illustrated guide to Eastern mint names. The pics are often updated. To gain space, large coins are sometimes shown with partially overlapping pictures. This is fine, except that, one would wish that in the section for France, the reverse of the 5 Franc coins would not always be covered by the obverse. I also do not like the different catalog numbers for coins from different mints that are otherwise identical. Another inconsistency is that sometimes, the nationality of coins is decided by the legend (e.g. Dutch coins struck in Brussels are listed in the Netherlands section), while in other instances it is decided by the location of the mint (e.g. British gold struck in Melbourne and Sydney is listed under Australia).

All in all, this is a remarkable attemp to list all the coins of a century and it keeps getting better.

Disclosure: I am a contributor to KM.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

Figleaf

The second edition of KM 21st edition is out. It is a relative improvement over the first edition. There are now recognizable sections of circulating coins issued in a sequence of dates. However, there are only pseudo coins on the cover and that's a fair descriptin of what's inside. The catalog is dominated by pseudo coins. There are now 384 pages (including a 20 page intro) for the first 6-1/2 years of the century. If we extrapolate that, the complete book will count ((384-20)*100/6.5)+20=5620 pages in 2101. The 20th edition now stands at 2230 pages. The only comfort is that pseudo coins have gone so wildly out of hand (a - thankfully not included - "coin" of a million CND ???) that something will have to give before this century is over, but probably not in my lifetime.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

Figleaf

#6
I like the cover of the new 20th edition a whole lot better. It has only real coins on it. Alas, what's inside is not better but worse than the previous edition. There are now 200 more pages in the book. A quick check in the Cuba section confirmed my fears: all the superfluous pics of pseudo coins missing from the last edition are back. This is a great gob of non-information that the collector is paying for. Once again, commercialism 1, collector 0.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

BC Numismatics

Peter,that is a very nice cover for the 20th. Century Krause catalogue.I like the Danzig gold coin,the German East African 1 Rupie,& the 2 Euro coin designs on the front.I can guess why the 2 Euro coin is depicted on that Krause.It is because of the fact that Euro coins from quite a few Eurozone countries go right back to 1999.

Do you contribute information about the mintmarks on the Euro coins? If that isn't included,then there is something wrong,in my opinion.That information is vital,especially for the Euro coin collectors.

Aidan.

Figleaf

I do the sections on (former) Dutch colonial coins, Aidan. Our member a3v1 is a euro coin expert on this forum (JeanPar is another) and he'll contribute to the next edition, I hope.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

Prosit

The 2001 to date catalogue cover looks nice.  I have the big coin on the cover showing the two heads facing right and left  ;D

I have the catalogues from 1601-2003.  Been thinkiing about getting an edition of this one.  Seems like it is about 38USD not counting shipping but I may not remember correctly.

Dale



BC Numismatics

Andy,
  There's room for improvement in the Krause catalogues,including Pick.

Having a proper world numismatic photo gallery will help the Krause catalogues get recompiled in a much more helpful & friendly way,considering that the 'Great Britain' & 'Zimbabwe' chapters of Pick are an absolute mess,& are in major need of a rewrite & a renumber.

Aidan.

UK Decimal +

#11
Aidan,

There is probably room for improvement in any form of documentation that has ever been published, whatever the subject.

You alone advertise three galleries under your signature.   How many galleries are really needed worldwide?   Ideally, just one, which would have to be properly resourced and paid for.   The cost would be extremely high.

How many people, honestly, need a worldwide publication?   Very few, I would suggest.

How many people, honestly, need catalogue numbers?   They are fine until they get changed for some reason, then they become more of a hindrance than a help.   At least, a simple entry like 'UK 2000 £5 Millennium + Dome mm' is surely more positive and meaningful than #1234567 (or whatever).

Admittedly, my needs are few, being for the UK only and they are well catered for by the latest Coin Yearbook, the Royal Mint site and Tony Clayton's site, plus of course my own collection; anything else I can ask about here.   And it is from here that I learn most.

If you want a full numismatic site, why not start it going by combining yours in a suitable format and then inviting others to add to it?

But then we come to a suitable format.   By country?   Countries change their names, so would you then start a new country heading or start adding complicated cross-referencing?   But at least that decision would be yours.   Or, you might wish to run it by the diameter of the coin; fine, until the coinage changes.   Whatever way you choose will not suit everyone and I would suggest that after a short time you yourself would want to change it - but you can't because it has already been published.

Bill.   
Ilford, Essex, near London, England.

People look for problems and complain.   Engineers find solutions but people still complain.

Salvete

Dear All,
Most people use Krause catalogues because that is what is easily available.  Collectors of Indian coins use it because the first ever useful catalogue of Mughal and post-Mughal Indian coins (which are the most popular series, I think) were well covered in the SAC of 1981 or thereabouts.  Many collectors still use it.  The Century editions are a big waste of cash for all collectors of Indian coins because 90%+ of each book must be discarded.  There should, by now, have been a new edition of SAC, but there has not been.  Why not?  Because Krause are not interested in providing what we want, only in hervesting our cash.  The order of the coins in recent editions is useless, there are hundreds of errors, hundreds of omissions and dozens of inconsistencies.  The SAC was put together by a panel of experts, but they became frustrated by Krause ignoring their advice and corrections, and because Krause employees ruined the catalogue by listening to fools and charlatans, who introduced those hunderds of errors.  There are still a few experts trying, against the flow of the tide, to correct the material in Krause's database.  Many of the best experts have given up in disgust and abandoned ship.  I do not think this is the best solution, because there is no alternative catalogue for us yet.
When I tried to get some changes made, I was told that if the Krause catalogues are not good enough, I could dam well go off and write my own.  Yes, very helpful, Sir!
Fortunately there are now a number of specialist catalogues that cover parts of the old SAC ground, but as yet, much is still only available in learned journals as articles by the same experts who could have kept Krause databases clean if given the chance.
Figleaf, why do you defend the indefensible?  Shouldn't we try to push Krause towards a re-issue of SAC, but only after it has been corrected?  There must be at least 100 Indian mints whose coins are now omitted from the database, and the date lists are very wrong in many cases.  The wrong picture accompanies poor descriptions, and 20% of Native State coins are STILL in the Mughal listings.  Some appear in BOTH listings, or more than once in the same listing under different catalogue numbers and with different values each time.  It's HORRIBLE and INDEFENSIBLE, so why do we still use those books?  Cannot anything be done to get the database corrected?  Don't they listen to anybody, or is George Dubya, the deaf President in charge at Krause, too?  They could do so much better if they would just listen and act.  No humility, probably.
Sorry to go on, but it is just so frustrating.
Salvete
Ultimately, our coins are only comprehensible against the background of their historical context.

Figleaf

Quote from: Salvete on December 27, 2009, 01:37:14 PM
Figleaf, why do you defend the indefensible?  Shouldn't we try to push Krause towards a re-issue of SAC, but only after it has been corrected?  There must be at least 100 Indian mints whose coins are now omitted from the database, and the date lists are very wrong in many cases.  The wrong picture accompanies poor descriptions, and 20% of Native State coins are STILL in the Mughal listings.  Some appear in BOTH listings, or more than once in the same listing under different catalogue numbers and with different values each time.  It's HORRIBLE and INDEFENSIBLE, so why do we still use those books?  Cannot anything be done to get the database corrected?  Don't they listen to anybody, or is George Dubya, the deaf President in charge at Krause, too?  They could do so much better if they would just listen and act.  No humility, probably.
Sorry to go on, but it is just so frustrating.

I have been working with Krause for a good number of years and seen change for the good and the worse. KM staff is not and has never been evil, but they have their working restrictions. In the early years, my experience was also that KM was not listening. The editors decided everything and didn't have the knowledge. That changed as KM got into trouble and people were fired. Editors decided to change 180° and leave everything to the contributors. In some cases, that was an improvement, in other cases (my personal pet peeves are the modern India and Mexico chapters) it was disastrous.

Krause has now been bought by a larger enterprise. My impression is that this doesn't mean they'll get more staff, but there is now money available for IT improvements. That may free up the editors enough to fix up some chapters. A middle way is out there, wanting to be discovered. Nevertheless, by and large KM is as good as the contributors selected. This is the area where they need help most.

A parallel problem is that the SCWC volumes are commercial products. They'll have to sell in sufficient volume or there won't be another edition. Hence the reliance on some very large US dealers, the different format for US and Canadian coins, the continuous attempts to introduce funny "grades", like BU for coins that were never struck in sets, the uncritical attitude towards "marginalia" (also known as NCLT, medal coins, pseudo coins and tourist trinkets.)

In all fairness, KM did produce specialized volumes collectors were clamoring for: circulation coins only, German coins, South Asian coins. There was only one edition. Conclusion: there's not enough demand for them or advertising in them or both. Better accept it: sales of real coins to serious collectors are vastly less important to dealer's profit margins than the sales of trinkets and extreme rarities that never circulated to casual "collectors" and "investors". We should be grateful that the latter greatly help finance the catalogues for the former.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

Salvete

The costs involved in publishing short-run books of this kind has dropped a lot in recent years because computers can pick the bits of the database and put them in order.  The material has only to be entered once and is available for use in any order and including and excluding whatever parts are wanted / not wanted.  Setting it up is done automatically overnight.  It just takes a man to decide to do it - that's all.  Also, we have noticed a huge increase in hobbyists over the last 20 years, so short run publications are not as short as they used to be.  I was told by Tom, some years ago, that the beak even point for a Krause catalogue was about 30,000.  Surely they would sell more than that in Maharashtra alone?  I am sorry, but I'm not convinceed that we are not being buggared about by some of the most megalomaniac, pig-headed people in the business.  And you mention the takeover by the money-grubbing conglomerate (I cannot even bring myself to type in their name) and that is when the last nail went into the coffin of SAC, and that is when I withdrew my own support and asked them not to send me any more contributors' sheets.  Last time, they did not even send me enough envelopes to return the sheets, which I did at the cost of over £20 in air-mail postage, without even a 'thankyou', never mind a free (useless?) catalogue!  Enough is enough, and they've pissed me about for the last time.  Sorry.
Barry
Ultimately, our coins are only comprehensible against the background of their historical context.