Customer Reviews

Standard Catalog of United States Tokens 1700-1900

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

 

 

Put on your reading glasses and your back-brace! This updated volume (4th edition) is huge, heavy, and filled to the brim with small print and b/w pictures...but those are necessary evils considering the breadth of information covered in this book. I wondered if the $35 price would be justified and I suppose it is. There may be easier ways (e.g., on-line) to find information about individual tokens, private merchant coins and cards, commemorative US coins, campaign tokens, as well as territorial gold and silver, but for serious collectors of early American exonumia or anyone trying to identify or establish the value of an unusual US coin, this volume is indispensable. I only wish my eyes were better! I'm glad I bought the book. Beyond its usefulness as a field guide, it is chock-full of interesting historical information and trivia, making it a very cool resource for anyone curious about how commerce, politics, and territorial expansion took place in colonial and post-colonial times. It also covers the Civil War era and after, up until the turn of the 20th century. Collecting these rare coins can be a gratifying hobby. Many of the coins are quite affordable and all are interesting snapshots of the mindset of our forebears. Also, by using this guide one might discover that the weird coin or faded store card found in Grandpa's sock drawer is a unique treasure which could yield big "bucks" (an exonumia term: buckskins were used as currency in the colonial period) at the next coin show or in an online auction. I gave the book 4 stars only because there are no color pictures, even though the details of coins are often easier to see in black and white. If there were color plates, however, I might not have been able to afford to buy this book.

This is the reference I had been looking for to help catalog my early US tokens. It is a nice all in one book with plenty of illustrations as well as some great information on the periods.

This is the absolute best reference book for collectors of United States Tokens and exonumia. The detailed pictures make identification easy and the index works extremely well. This is a must have for any United States coin/token collector. A++

Catalog was rec'd promptly and in good condition. Contents are everything we thought it would be.