As my wife and I educate ourselves on error coins, one book has stood out as a resource for us: The Official Price Guide to Mint Errors by Alan Herbert. In its seventh edition, this guide has been available to error coin collectors since 1974. The book provides details on over 400 classes of minting varieties.
For coin enthusiasts, this book provides detailed explanations on the three basic parts of the minting process: making of the planchets, making the dies and the striking process. On a recent tour to the Philadelphia mint, I found that the information I had gleamed from this book gave me a greater appreciation of the minting process as I watched pennies being created.
Alan Herbert's error coins guide delivers wonderful and helpful advice for collectors, including where to find additional resources and what to watch out for when purchasing error coins through the Internet. Additionally, he provides an honest assessment of error coin values, acknowledging that non-collectors "have a very inflated idea of the value of minting varieties." His approach in the book of giving rarity levels and a range of values is helpful and honest.
{ 1 trackback }