New Trade Dollar Book Available

keoj

After 15-20 years of balancing life, family, work and hobbies, I finally completed my goal of writing a reference book on Trade Dollars. Retiring, getting some encouragement and support from several Forum Members helped me get it done. You know who you are and thanks!!! I'm not sure about the Forum rules regarding books, but here is the link if you are interested in purchasing (it is a numismatic reference book).

https://www.lulu.com/shop/joe-kirchgessner/us-trade-dollar-rarity-collection-types-and-top-37-varieties/hardcover/product-gjqjgg5.html?q=Trade+Dollar&page=1&pageSize=4

Like any book, this was a challenge to write. The "objective" of the book is stated in the link above. It's 530 pages with about half the book identifying dies and dies marriages (this was both a "best effort" and a challenge). A lot of pictures (all B&W to money and maximize feature contrast.

I'm sure there will be debate, as always, on what constitutes varieties, rarity and unintentional omissions. I have passed out a few copies to a few folks for pre-read and they might chime in. I'm not always the best at staying on top of forum discussions but please message me if you have any questions. and I'll get to it when I can.

Best, Keoj

lermish

TLDR; This book is AWESOME and anyone with even a tiny interest in trade dollars should add it to their library immediately.

This is a slightly more formal book review I wrote for my website ->

After decades of research and work, US Trade Dollar: Rarity, Collection Types, and Top 37 Varieties by Joe Kirchgessner is now the definitive resource on U.S. Trade Dollars. This is the first comprehensive book to approach the T$  in such depth, and it fills a long-standing gap in numismatic literature. Joe's work is not only a remarkable contribution to the hobby but also a major leap forward for the serious study and collectability of these coins. I couldn’t be happier to see all of Joe's hard work pay off in such an impressive way.  This achievement reflects both his passion and commitment to accuracy and detail.

Utilizing portions of this book in earlier draft format and now as a completed package has had a massive impact on my own collecting.  It clarified previously unknown and unanswerable questions I'd had for years and helped me identify varieties and diagnostics I didn't understand or even know existed. 

The book starts off with a brief history and context behind trade dollars.  As it progresses, it breaks down populations, die combinations, varieties, counterfeit detection, and eventually finishes with an in-depth die study. It’s laid out really well, easing the reader in and then going deep for those who want to go all the way down the rabbit hole. It’s structured to welcome beginners but ultimately also works for the most advanced collectors.

In my opinion, the book’s standout strength is its breakdown of varieties and die pairings. The die analysis is extremely useful for a T$ fanatic; there’s a ton of original research here that hasn’t been published anywhere else. And with the commonality of high quality fakes, the die analysis in combination with the counterfeit detection section is worth the price of admission by itself. Joe laid the book out in an approachable fashion without making it feel overwhelming, even when he gets into the very technical stuff. 

If you’re into trade dollars or curious about them, this book is required reading; I expect it to be on every serious numismatist's shelf soon. It’s detailed without being dry, technical without being confusing, and it is the reference for trade dollars. Enormous congratulations are due to Joe for putting this together — it’s a HUGE contribution to the hobby.

shish

OMG!!!
Congratulations Joe! You FINALLY released it.
I appreciate all the hard work you put in and hope that your book is very popular and becomes the go to trade dollar reference. Ordered two copies.

johnny9434

😎

mbogoman

I second everything @Lermish has said. It's a monumental book and reference. Kudos to Joe for enduring and finally completing it!!!

DDR

**This is fantastic news for Trade Dollar collectors! **

Congratulations, Joe, I am glad that the book is out. I can't wait to devour my hard copy edition.

skier07

Wow!

Congrats!

Just ordered a copy.

Crypto

One of the best numismatic books that aids all levels I have ever read, congrats Joe on your seminal book

ChopmarkedTrades

Amazing effort that the Trade Dollar collecting community will benefit tremendously from!

johnny010

Awesome
I just bought a Trade Dollar so I’ll be reading. Thank you for your contribution to the community.

tradedollarnut

Super proud of you for sticking with it - can’t wait to read the book

jesbroken

Thanks for your hard work, Kevin. Book ordered.
Jim

keoj

Thanks everyone for the kind comments.

DDR

Just received my hard copy! Wow. I can see why it took over a decade to research and write this book -- extraordinarly comprehensive. The review above by @lermish nails it. I can't recommend it highly enough to anyone with an interest in the series.

keoj

Thanks for the ideas. I'll likely do a quick listing in the Gobrecht Journal and talk to the LSCC about a Baltimore presentation. Best, keoj

HalfDime

Very nice!

kaz

Congratulations, Joe, on finishing the book. I can't wait to receive my copy!

KiwiNumi

Any plans for a digital copy in the future?

justindan

Thanks for the hard work brother!
Ordered a copy.

keoj

No plans for a digital copy at the moment. I'll think about that. Please feel free to send me comments or questions once you get it. Thank you.

messydesk

How does this book correlate with, complement, and/or supplement the work John Coxe @alefzero did documenting all the business strike die marriages of the series here?

lermish

@messydesk said:
How does this book correlate with, complement, and/or supplement the work John Coxe @alefzero did documenting all the business strike die marriages of the series here?

Joe - Please tell me to shut my trap as necessary.

John - Joe has not seen nor referenced John C's work so he can't comment...but I have studied both so I will comment. I mean this as no disrespect to @alefzero , we've spent enough time talking T$ that I hope he knows I greatly respect his opinion and thoughts. In the absence of any other useful reference material, @alefzero 's work was a ray of light in the darkness.

That being said, I find Joe's book a superior reference. The indexing system makes more sense and is easily useable. The pictures are better. There is commentary on populations and scarcity and other relevant topics and cross referencing to varieties. I have had access to both for some time and, given the choice, I have turned to Joe's book each time. The only shortcoming I can think of in Joe's book is that the 77-S die marriages are not 100% complete. But, given the herculean and thankless nature of that task, and the cost benefit analysis of the amount of work required, I do not blame him at all.

golden

Congratulations!

DDR

I have both books. They are really two different things.

I have used John Coxe's book frequently to check or confirm some varieties I have. However, his book focuses exclusively on his top 50 varieties and nothing else.

Joe's (Keoj's) book focuses on varieties as well but is much more comprehensive in the information it provides and focuses on the entire Trade Dollar series, including chopmarked Trade Dollars, basic date/mintmark collecting, and more advanced Type I and II Obverse and Reverse collecting, among other topics.

I've used both books, but if I had to get one I would get Joe's.

messydesk

@DDR said:
I have both books. They are really two different things.

I have used John Coxe's book frequently to check or confirm some varieties I have. However, his book focuses exclusively on his top 50 varieties and nothing else.

The book is his top 50, but the reference I linked above is his exhaustive catalog of die marriages for all business strikes.

keoj

John Coxe and I had a couple of brief conversations a few years ago regarding a possible collaboration. He was on a different timeline than me at that time. I created a Table of Contents about 15 years ago and wanted to hold to that as much as I could. Dies and die marriages for Trade Dollars are very challenging and I could have finished the book 10 years ago if I decided not to take it on. Some dates/mintmarks are easy (example 73-CC, 78-CC) some are incredibly difficult to catalog well (76-S, 77-S). Even towards the end, I was doing a lot of checking and validation. As a plug, John Dannreuther and I checked TD Proofs to make sure we were coherent. He is working on, and will release his US Silver Proof coinage book this year, Everyone has opinions regarding Top XX coins, that okay.

keoj

Crypto

Book in hand and it’s really a masterpiece. And I have been a voracious numismatic reader my whole life.

alefzero

Ordered mine. Looking forward to checking it out when I get back in town.

keoj

Love to get your thoughts, I'll buy one of yours now! Best, Joe

jesbroken

Haven't got my copy yet either, can't wait.
Jim

tradedollarnut

@jesbroken said:
Haven't got my copy yet either, can't wait.
Jim

Still waiting for delivery here as well

jesbroken

Congrats.
Jim

Crypto

@4Redisin said:
I got mine Friday! So much to learn. The beginning of the book - before the photo listings is very interesting and connects a little to the Gobrecht Journal research. I'll bet some new discoveries will soon pop up because of Joe's efforts. IMO, the Coxe book is totally different so they cannot be compared.

I would be shocked if much new came out at least anything dramatic. It is such a limited run series and they have been poured over. But anything is possible

steve_richardson

Thanks @Crypto for drawing my attention to this book. I ordered a copy and am looking forward to learning more about this series.

johnny9434

That alone would be nice to have in ones library, fwiw 👍

keoj

I sort of agree with Crypto. I wrote a lot on the series for the Gobrecht Journal in the last 20 years or so on varieties, including some of the LSCC population surveys (Chopmarked), etc. Over time, the number of dramatic discoveries have diminished. There are plenty of subtle ones that still occur. A couple of examples, there are (I believe) 4 1875-CC I/II dies that were used (identified in book in the TDV chapter and the Die/Die Marriage chapter). Another example is an attempt, and I think that it is accurate, to show multi-year reverse die usage and if those dies were retired to produce BS coins. But as Crypto mentioned, anything is possible. I recently looked at a 1877-S type II/I (unknown Type I/II combination) and concluded that it was an incredibly good die-made fake (I think), Always good to keep an open mind. Best, keoj

jesbroken

Got my book. Wow, heavy volume. Had to be a work of love. Thank you Joe. Too heavy for my hands to hold. Any chance I could purchase a pdf? I would love that.
Jim

DNADave

It’s time to upgrade my reference material.

IkesT

I received my copy today! 👍👍

Crypto

@IkesT said:
I received my copy today! 👍👍

It’s really good, enjoy

johnny010

Love the book and my new T$1’s. Thanks Joe 👊🏻😎

kaz

Got mine 2 days ago, wow, what a great book. Clear photos of the varieties are really helpful, as are the explanations of subtle differences, like the "wide CC" vs "very wide CC." Exceptional reference! Thank you, Joe.

keoj

@johnny010
Thanks for the comments and very nice proofs! I sent you a message regarding the '79 (nice coin!!!) and let me know the die marriage (defined in '79 die section)! No premium but sort of cool!

@kaz
Thanks for the comments!

Best, keoj

keoj

Great question. This is the beauty and the magic of "Print on Demand". Amazon (KDP) , Lulu Publishing, and many other options exist that have this supply chain model. It's amazing..... No print runs on books if you choose this method. It is slightly more expensive per copy (but not much), but provides so much flexibility.

Best, keoj

alefzero

Got mine and perused it. Outstanding work and presentation!

I will have to try to correlate the listings within it, for dies and die pairs, with my own catalogue to see if I missed any important ones. (My approach was strictly to catalog all of the dies and pairs, like the VAM listings, with less regard for rarity, though that became evident in many cases and through discussions here.)

keoj

@alefzero

Thanks for the comments, Cataloging dies and marriages, as you well know, is a daunting task. I put a ton of caveats and disclaimers on this section in terms of omissions, errors and repeats. JD and I spent a whole week on a single proof die trying to determine if it was unique or a repeat. On the big mintage years/mintmarks, 77-S, 78-S, 77, 76-S, it was a best effort approach. I could spend a year on each and not get them all. I suspect that there might be a few dies and die marriages that were shipped to Asia and never circulated in the US. It was quite surprising the number of rare (some being extremely rare) TD varieties that have been found with chopmarks. On smaller mintage dates/mintages, this section is more accurate (but still not 100%). But, you know that!!!

Please reach out of you have questions on anything,

Best, keoj

keoj

@alefzero

One more thought. Many years ago, the late Bill Cowburn wrote an article on the Gobrecht Journal on cataloging 77-S dies. (I used and cited his methodology.). I went back when I was complete and tried to cross reference to his listing. I got about 90% there with some big question marks on the remainder. If you have two physical coins in front of you, not that hard on some coins. If you have two great images in front of you, it gets harder. Partial images, it can be very hard or impossible. On all of these, coin-to-coin die states and striking anomalies can be a bear.

But again, you know this and lived it.

keoj

lermish

@keoj said:
It was quite surprising the number of rare (some being extremely rare) TD varieties that have been found with chopmarks.

There are still a few on my wishlist but here are some fun ones that have surfaced recently.

75-Very Wide c c (only chopped example, one of five known in any condition)

76-P 1/1 w/ Period, Perfect Reverse (only chopped example, one of a few dozen speculated to exist in any condition)

76-P 2/2 (one of five known chopped examples, one of a few dozen speculated to exist in any condition)

Desert Moon

@keoj said:
Thanks for the ideas. I'll likely do a quick listing in the Gobrecht Journal and talk to the LSCC about a Baltimore presentation. Best, keoj

Can you get a Vendor, or maybe LSCC, to have your book available at ANA in Aug.?

Best, DM