Question about Bowers & Merena "Rare Coin Review"

Longacre

Does anyone have old issues of the B&M Rare Coin Review (when Bowers was part of the outfit)? If so, can you please describe teh content and the number of pages in each issue. I heard that these were around 110 pages, but I find that hard to believe seeing that they came out quarterly. Are most of the pages price lists, or are they articles? Thanks.

Mark

They were GREAT. They were a combination of price lists (with really cool descriptions of many of the coins), articles by B&M people and others, Q & A's by QDB, neat pictures, "odds and ends" also by QDB, and other things. The number of pages varied from one issue to another. I used to eagerly anticipate them; they were--and still are--great reads and an immense storehouse of numismatic information. It would be really worthwhile if someone could collect and publish a book with the articles published in the "Rare Coin Review".

Mark

Longacre

Mark:

I think that the Numismatist's Companion books compilied a lot of the articles, if I am not mistaken. My quesiton was to find out if this was true because I have the Companion books and I don't want to get the Rare Coin Reviews if it contains the same info. Perhaps some others will respond and clarify. Thanks.

Mark

Longacre:

You are correct that the "Companion" books published a lot of the articles; I had forgotten this fact. But the most recent Companion book has a 1994 copyright and the Rare Coin Review kept on going for at least another 6 or 7 years. However, I do not know if the 8 Companion books contain all the articles in the RCR up to 1994. I doubt it because there were a lot of little articles, etc. in each issue.

Mark

DoctorPaper

I have the great majority of the Rare Coin Reviews. I'm kind of a packrat. Goes along with coin collecting I guess. Here's a 1973 issue. Do these catalgues have any intrinsic value??

They are interesting to look at. No TPGing of course!!
Proof Morgans (multiple dates) $239, BU '16D merc (sl. rub) $495,
1792 half disme, EF/AU $1995, 1916 SLQ, ch BU $869, etc., etc., etc.

Pistareen

The Rare Coin Review was one of the great dealer periodicals of all time. I was lucky to be able to contribute to a few issues between 2000 and 2002 (and one back in 1994). Typical page counts were over 100, with research oriented articles, tidbits, and coin quizzes making up a substantial proportion.

Regarding intrinsic value, a set of RCRs in nice shape is worth several hundred dollars. The early ones tend to be the rares ones, with numbers 1 + 2, published by Hathaway and Bowers, considered the "keys." I only have those issues in xerox form as only a handful of copies of each are known.

Many of the great names in numismatics contributed over the years, and of course Dave Bowers was editor and primary contributor for the duration.

Some might say ANR's Numismatic Sun shares some qualities with the old RCRs, with Dave in his usual form.

There are a number of others smaller periodicals known collectively as "Bowersiana" by bibliophiles. There are items of interest to be found in each, with Empire Topics bearing the closest similarity to the RCR and others like the Special Coin Letters or Nummis Mundi having an active collector base as well.

Individual copies can often be found on eBay and larger lots sometimes appear in numismatic literature auctions.

Coinosaurus

I contributed a couple articles myself, so naturally I am in complete agreement with Pistareen