Has anyone ever read "The Crime of 1873"?

Longacre

It is a book about Morgan dollars and Trade dollars and the western silver discovery. Here is a copy of the review on Amazon. Is this book worth getting?

Award-winning author Robert R. Van Ryzin sheds new and illuminating light on the creation of the Morgan and Silver Trade dollars. From the mine to the mint, never-before-published information reveals wrongdoing at the highest levels of the U.S. Mint. As a complete price guide for Morgan and Trade Silver dollars, information is provided on which dates are rare, scarce, and valuable. Collectors of U.S. coins, the Old West and historians of the economy and mining industry, will all enjoy this richly told and highly inclusive story.

PutTogether

I've never read THAT particular book........but most things written about that period of absolute economic turmoil are fascinating. Economic problems of post civil war to about 1900 make issues we have going on now look like a joke.

CoinHusker

Thanks for the heads up

shirohniichan

I've read it.

It has a lot of great information in it. My first impression was that it wasn't written well, but I've grown accustomed to the author's style. I recommend it.

09sVDB

I read it about 5 years ago. Although I thought it was good , I also thought it was very technical and dragged out.

Mark

I love reading numismatic books and I really looked forward to that book. Unfortunately shiro is correct insofar as the author's style is not the best. I put the book down for 1 year before I returned to it and finished. So I thought the book was, at best, OK but I can't strongly recommend it. Some of the historic pictures, however, were neat.

Mark

Conder101

I read it several years ago and found it enjoyable. And at the price I last saw it advertised at you wouldn't be risking much. (I don't know what it is listed on at Amazon, but it has been listed for sale recently as a discontinued book for $10.

beep

I received this book as a gift so I plowed through it. Very dry; yet not a bad book imho. Explains history of silver nicely!

astrorat

Get the book and read it. It is the best text thus far on the economic issues of the 1860-1880 period. The sections on collecting Morgan and Trade dollars seems out of place to me (there are a lot better "collector" books out there on the two series). You can't beat the book for the price . . . $10 from Krause (or it used to be) and often $15 on eBay. The original list was $35 (or so, I believe).

It is not a book if you are looking for investor advice, die varieties, or how to grade dollars . . . it's a great history book.

Lane