Customer Reviews

Collecting and Investing Strategies for Walking Liberty Half Dollars (Strategy Guide Series)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a real handy book to have. It is filled with improtant information and facts that any collector of the walking liberty half dollar will like. It is a little more geared towards the high end buyer but there is still pleanty of information for the rest of the collectors. For the guys that are getting ready to make an investment in this coin this is your book. If you collect this coin at all or want to get started then this is the book for you.

Jeff Ambio is a relatively new numismatic writer and thus, it's difficult to determine whether one should buy this paperback book given that it is almost never in a bookstore for you to hold and inspect.

Collecting & Investing Strategies for Walking Liberty Half Dollars is written for the armchair collector who dreams about acquiring a world class collection over time as well as the serious investor. Jeff states a complete 65 coin date and mint set will cost at least $175,000 in Mint State 64 and $425,000 in MS65! He does suggest less expensive alternatives to the collector by reducing the scope of the collection down to partial sets and type sets. A reasonable alternative, he suggests, is spending upwards of $30,000 for one grade MS64 Walking Liberty Half Dollar for each of the 25 years the series was minted. He does not recommend collecting coins that have been circulated!

This is a great book for those who want to learn about the striking, luster, surfaces, toning and eye appeal of each of the 65 business strike and seven proof coins. A major disappointment is the usage of black and white pictures for each coin. While it must of have a labor of love to pick out the pictures for the book, it's difficult to see the critical head and hand detail on many coins. The exception is the wonderful color photo on the cover page. Perhaps, glossy pages and color pictures would solve the problem in future editions. A stand alone book on Walkers would also have benefited from a technical explanation of each mint state grade. Based on what Jeff has written, this book does deserve five stars.

This would be a good reference for an experienced collector looking to assemble a high end collection of Walkers. If you're in that category, you'll like the information contained. But, if you're interested in Walkers and looking to begin a collection of circulated coins, you need to save your money and look elsewhere. Following the authors recommendations for collecting Walkers you can expect to spend $30,000 to 40,000. The topic was just too narrow for me.

The Walking Liberty Half Dollar is a work of art from the United States mint. "Walking Liberty Half Dollars" is a complete and comprehensive guide for coin collectors looking to focus their collection around this charming piece. Examining every detail of the coin such as luster, auctions, and how many are left in today's circulation, "Walking Liberty Half Dollars" is a top pick for hobbyists and for community library collections seeking their patronage.

This book emphasizes all the key characteristics related to collecting Walking Liberty Half Dollars in a clear and concise way. It is also refreshing to have a text available for numismatic collectors that updates Bruce Fox's work on "The Complete Guide to Walking Liberty Half Dollars" from DLRC Press, 1993, ISBN 1-880731-15-0 or 1-880731-16-1. Jeff Ambio's version is a good successor to the 1993 issued Fox book. I like the added emphasis of Ambio's reflections for recommended grade, surface preservation, strike and other characteristics with each date an mint. This book is recommended to all Walking Liberty Half Dollar enthusiasts.

Very well done tome on the walking libert half dollar; year-by-year breakdown
of each issue. A most for any "Walker" collector!

This would be a good book as a reference for a seasoned investor who wants to know the specific mintages, grade distributions and nuances of each coin in the series. But it falls short in a couple of ways;

First, there was little (or no) information on grading in either circ or un-circ grades. Basically, so many of the issues in this series have gotten extremely expensive, that moving down the grading scale is needed for any serious collector without unlimited funds.

Second, there is little information on the investing cycles that have happened with this series in the past. Basically, this is a popular series that is periodically the target of coin investors that materially move the prices up...and then down. This needs to be discussed.

Third, basically a combination of the two points above is that it would be a great addition if the author could include not only collecting strategies, but also investing strategies for this series. Many of the "investment grade" coin pushers tout only MS65 grade, but there is a lot of evidence that circulated grades have lots of appreciation potential - especially in this widely collected series. Maybe I will write something about this on my blog...

On the plus side, there is good information on the types of collecting that can be done with walkers - various type collections, halves, twentieth century, Weinmann and so on.

If you are serious about collecting this issue without getting fleeced, make sure and order the CDN price history graphs from that publisher. There is no graphical pricing history in this book and it would be very helpful.

I purchased this book for my husband. He is an avid coin collector and has been searching for a good book that helps in determining the value, quality, and history of these particular coins. He suggested this book-which I bought for him for Christmas. I do not know much about coin collecting, but I do know he really loves this book! He has several books on coin collecting but this is the one he refers to more than the others. Therefore, I suppose this is the book for any info you are looking for in collecting this type of coin.