What is the best gold coin reference work?

Longacre

Does anyone have an opinion on the best reference for US gold coins? It seems that there have been a lot of books written about various series, but I don't know if there is any comprehensive work out there (I believe that David Akers has a multivolume set, but I hear that it has not been update in over 10 years).

Also, what do you think about using auction catalogs in order to start to build my own "reference cheat sheet"? In the auction catalogs (especially ANR and Heritage), they give a lot of information on the coins and background. I recenly purchased the Eliasberg gold coin auction catalog from the 1980's, and I was going to use that as a starting point seeing that it has all of the coins listed. Then I would build a little "summary" of each issue/mintmark based off of my research with the other catalogs/reference books. Any opinions on whether this is worthwhile, or has it been done already?

saintguru

You have answered your own question in most regards!! The Akers books are timeless and fantastic. There are a few changes regarding scarcity because of the hoards that came out subsequent to his books, but his descriptions of each date is exact and great reference material. The Elaisberg catalogue is such a great reference book, and not easy to get. Look at the brief write-up by the 1914 Saint regarding auctions and prices. I found that to be a invaluable piece. B&M is coming out with a book on Double Eagles any day now, with some help by David, and it supposedly deals with every date similar to the Akers book.

If you can get hold of the PRICE catalogue 1998, by David Akers, you will see what is perhaps the greatest gold auction, as well as being spectacularly informative, since David commented on every coin.. Why not, he bought every one of them for Dr. Price!

Good luck.

RYK

I would say that there is no one single best reference for all of the US gold coins. Bowers' US Gold Coins: An Illustrated History provides an excellent overview, but not a date-by-date, issue-by-issue analysis. The Doug Winter books do provide this type of analysis for the specialized areas about which he has written: namely, branch mint issues from Carson City, Dahlonega, Charlotte, and New Orleans, Indian quarter eagles, and Liberty $20's. The Breen monographs from the 60's are also very informative and are readily available. Bowers imminent release of the book on all $20's should be very good. Doug Winter's website www.raregoldcoins.com has a vast number of excellent (free) articles on many facets of gold coin collecting and collecting, in general. There is also a booklet published by DW entitled, The Connoisseur's Guide to United States Gold Coins which is a spiral-bound publication from 1995 which is somewhat dated but still a good reference.

Compiling a summary based on auctions is an excellent idea. It will be very time-consuming. The problem is, just going by the pictures, you will not know which issues were overgraded/undergraded, dipped/original, etc.

Good Luck!

Robert

dorkkarl

what are your goals? you might consult breen's encycolpedia as a place to start.

K S

mhammerman

Thanks to RYK and those that have contributed over the last month to gold reading reference topics. Some of the books are sitting on my night stand and others are bookmarked on line for future purchases. U.S. Gold coinage is the evidence that supports of some exceptional stories, tales, rumors, intrigue, and the drama of rare things. I am going to post this link that I gleaned from RYK's reference in this thread, intending no offence. An exceptionally nice for an on-line resource so those interested in gold can get a painless introduction. Thanks again.

http://www.raregoldcoins.com/articles.asp


Mike