Regarding coin book pricing—why does one corporate conglomerate price books for The Masses, while an

Longacre

I was taking a read through another thread where someone asked about the upcoming Whitman Encyclopedia of Colonial and Early American Coins. I understand this book to be a tour de force (approximately 500 or so pages, if I recall correctly). In that thread, some Corporate Suit™ from Whitman said he expected the book to retail for around $39.95.

Today I was taking a read through the latest issue of Esylum, and there is an article about the 5th edition of Early Paper Money of America coming out soon. This, too, is a tour de force, and is approximately 500 pages. However, I was flabbergasted when the Corporate Suit™ at Krause Publications stated the cost of the book will be $95.00.

I know that you cannot put a price on knowledge, but to me, $39.95 is a price for The Masses, while a $95.00 book is one that can only be afforded by the wealthy. I think there is a big difference in those prices. Perhaps the Suits at Whitman are more frugal than KP executives, and only fly First Class, rather than by NetJets, or they dine in the executive dining room on ceramic plates, rather than bone China, and that accounts for the lower prices passed on to the consumer.

How price conscious are you when purchasing coin books, and does a coin book at a particular price point turn you off, especially if another competing publisher can seem to price similar books that everyone can afford?

BobGreene

I'm fairly price conscious. I wanted to buy the 18th edition of Friederg's book on paper money, but was turned off by the price of over $40. If the price would have been between 22-30 dollars I most likely would have bought it.

lordmarcovan

I'll confess. I'm pretty cheap when it comes to numismatic books.

I consider a current set of the four volumes of the Krause Standard Catalog of World Coins and a current Redbook of US coins to be the "bare essentials".

Beyond that, I'll add a title to my library if it isn't too steep. Otherwise, fuhgeddaboutit.

I'm probably TOO cheap, I know. Knowledge pays big dividends. But I've found the more esoteric and specialized books happen to be the ones that are usually costlier, fortunately. Perhaps this is another thing which has kept me a "jack of all trades, and specialist in none".

I did cough up 89 bucks for a like-new Breen Encyclopedia, once, off the BST.

Cladiator

Because.

Quarternut

Whitman only does a book if they can sell thousands of them and it has "mass" appeal to many collectors. They will print a minimum of 5000 copies for each book. This cuts the costs of printing down considerably.

When you only print a limited amount of copies of a book, the costs remain approximately the same whether you print 100 or 5000 copies (although there will be some difference in materials) as the printer will not have to spend more time with set up and can just continue to print until all the copies are ran.

If you look at any of the self publishing web sites that do "print-on-demand" type of printing, the costs to do one book is very high and goes down on a sliding scale the more you have printed.

You can also save on the costs by having them sent out to China to have them printed, although with the American economy the way it currently is, I think that having them done here would be of benefit to more Americans.

The type of binding that is done can also save cost. The cheapest type of binding is called "true" binding (which it isn't) and is what you see on a small paperback book. A quality hard bound stitched binding that will last and take abuse over the years and allows the book to lay flat on a table etc., does cost more, but is much better in the long run.

I wish that all numismatic books could be done cheaply so that collectors would be more likely to purchase them and benefit from them, but with the myriad of esoteric subjects and the limited audience to sell the finished products to, this is not really possible.

Printing costs have come down considerably due to the use of digital imageing, but it still has a way to go to make it truly economic to print in small quantities.

I approached Whitman when I was pricing printers for my Bust Quarter book, but was told that they would not be interested unless I was printing 5000 or more (I only had 900 printed and hard bound).

QN

CoinRaritiesOnline

Good info, Quarternut. Thanks.

RWB

The $95 price applies only to Connecticut and certain other affluent neighborhoods. In more modest locals, the price is $34.95 or thereabouts. Like “HOT” lanes, soon everything will be charged “demand pricing.”

Quarternut

Thanks Dave!

One final note...

Let's say that Mr. Longacre decided it was time he wrote a numismatic book (whatever the subject may be that he is the most well versed in).

He begins his project and worked diligently on it for 3-5 years when he had time to dedicate to it from the gobs of spare time he seems to have...

After many hours spent chasing elusive clues to flesh out his writings and scads of minutes on the phone with other collectors, hours of examination of coins both on many bourse floors and in other collectors collections and in institutions that contain a collection, as well as the multiple examples that he has purchased for his own collection, he finally has a complete volume that is done to his satisfaction.

Then he must locate a printer (or even a publisher if he is unable to build the actual layout of the book himself) and make dozens of decisions as to what the final book form will be. After shelling out 10's of thousands of dollars to the printer of his choice, he must then figure out how to distribute and sell this masterpiece.

Hopefully he can find several dealers who would be happy to carry his book, but wait...they will only buy it to resell provided they can buy it at a wholesale price (generally 40 to 50% off of the retail price). What should he do? Should he sell his labor of love basically for his printing cost and at absolutely no recompense for all of his time and labor spent, let alone a small profit? Should he try to sell all of them himself and maybe have to have pallets of books sitting around the living room or taking up his lovely wife's spot in the garage for the next 5 years?

Oh and did I forget to mention the shipping supplies needed to properly wrap the books and boxes to ship them in?

Gee after all of this maybe it would be better if he decided not to write it in the first place?

And to top it off, collectors don't want to buy the book because it doesn't cost the magical $29.95 that all of the best sellers go for down at the local Barnes & Noble!

Egad! What is a numismatic author to do...?

And here I was of the mind that a good numismatic book will save me money in the long run, as the information it contains (provided it is well done of course) will make me a more informed buyer and the small amount of even $100 invested will come back to me twelve fold...


QN

lordmarcovan

Good point. It's easy to forget the financial realities and costs involved in printing and publishing.

I guess this explains why the "specialist" books are more expensive.