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Krause improvement??

Besides eliminating the obvious errors that always seem to rear their ugly heads, I would like to see a more drastic change. Instead of going 100 years with the 20th and 21st centuries, I would like to see them split at 1901-1974 and 1975-2100??. I would find both volumes very useful and both easier to use. I hate plodding through all of the modern NCLT issues to find what I happen to be looking for. Anyone else have thoughts about this?

Comments

  • mrpotatoheaddmrpotatoheadd Posts: 7,576 ✭✭
    My preference would be to keep the 100 year increments but separate issued coinage and NCLT into their own catalogs.
  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,305 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i>My preference would be to keep the 100 year increments but separate issued coinage and NCLT into their own catalogs. >>



    Same here.

    Circulating coinage ties together eras and countries. It isn't appropriate to cut series in two
    just to squeeze everything into a one size fits all catalog. If they just got rid of the NCLT and
    non-coins like thwe Marshall Islands. Keep the proof set listing even for NCLT but drop the
    pictures and descriptions and put them in a separate catalog. I believe this would leave room
    to list entire series for all coins that were issued in 1900 and to bring it up to date and it would
    still be a little lighter than it is now.

    The old format was better. Why do they provide the exact same coin desciption for two distinct
    types. They used to jusrt describe how the second differed from the first. Argh. They just keep
    making changes and most are not for the better. They're trying to be all things to all people and
    are failing (of course). Why have countless pages of Liberian NCLT and then stop at 2000? Any-
    one interested in 20th century Liberian NCLT will probably want 21st century as well. It was a
    mistake to divide it by century. Maybe in the future this will be the right way but it's not in 2012.

    I'd love to help them with this thing but I don't know where to start. If I just straighten them
    out on the twenty or thirty coins I know are grossly underpriced then I won't know when the
    catalog reflects real values and not what they were priced at last year. It's good to see Denmark
    come down a little since they had some really common coins listed at $10 but I'm not much more
    confident in the new prices.

    My primary concern is accurate prices and this is the area that is most questionable. I don't be-
    lieve there's really so little demand for a rare Fijian 50c that it can list for a few dollars. It's far
    easier to believe they just don't know what they are worth. In their defense many of these mar-
    kets are very tiny and taking the pulse of a few coins trading at widely disparate and unreported
    prices can be impossible.

    There's a disconcerting tendency for dates that I have to be the one that actually pops higher in
    price. I'd like to attribute this to my savvy and acumen in choosing the right coins to save but no-
    body's that good. Yes, I sought the ones I knew were better dates but I didn't pass on the oth-
    er dates either if they appeared gem and cheap. I just seem to have the feeling each year after
    looking at the new edition that I don't know any more than I already did. This year, for instance,
    I was just certain they'd update the prices of the early Soviet coins. These are apparently trad-
    ing at prices far in excess of anything I ever imagined possible. It's not extremely surprising since
    uncs have been very elusive but I assumed they were readily available in Russia. Apparently they
    are not available even in lower grades judging by the prices they bring on the net. Coin collecting
    was strongly discouraged by the Soviets. Moscow's coin club was the only one in the country and
    had fewer than a hundred members. None of them would admit to actively collecting post-czarist
    except for a little silver. I couldn't find access to anything modern.

    Of course I was hopeful that a lot of things would be updated. Spain was one but it doesn't appear
    at all. There is strong anecdotal evidence that some of the prices for '50's to '70's cu/ ni might be
    much too low. I've seen very nice XF's going for more than MS-63's (BU) even where the price
    spread is significant. It really cuts across the board that a lot of the '50's to '80's cu/ ni isn't avail-
    able and there is a tiny bit of demand now. Japan has traded for much higher prices in the home
    market for many years now and even those prices seem low compared to availability.

    It's getting to the point that doing my own price discovery might be cheaper.
    Tempus fugit.
  • HoledandCreativeHoledandCreative Posts: 2,729 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I still think it is better to keep the coins of a country together for the collectors. That is, not separating the commems (NCLT are modern ones imo) from the regular issues. 100, or 200 years ago, commemoratives weren't meant for circulation either. The coins were circulation-ready however with the denomination fairly obvious as they are today. Not so many reach circulation today as they cost so much more than a buck or so above face value. Wouldn't splitting the book at 75 years pretty much appease most of the older and the younger collectors? When I was collecting foreign, probably less than 1% of what I wanted was after 1950. I am sure the collectors today have restricting parameters, or a bottomless pit for a pocketbook.

    Maybe Krause has done some checking into something like that already.

    Why have the book so big? The electronic version would be easier to use, too.

    I would also like to see each type coin to be described with metal, size, and weight. It is very inconsistent right now. I'm sure it would take an edition, or maybe 6 editions, to get it done. There will always be mistakes, but for the most part they are fixed when they are caught. Krause is already doing a great job picturing a very high percentage of the coins.
  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,305 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i>I still think it is better to keep the coins of a country together for the collectors. That is, not separating the commems (NCLT are modern ones imo) from the regular issues. 100, or 200 years ago, commemoratives weren't meant for circulation either. The coins were circulation-ready however with the denomination fairly obvious as they are today. Not so many reach circulation today as they cost so much more than a buck or so above face value. Wouldn't splitting the book at 75 years pretty much appease most of the older and the younger collectors? When I was collecting foreign, probably less than 1% of what I wanted was after 1950. I am sure the collectors today have restricting parameters, or a bottomless pit for a pocketbook.

    Maybe Krause has done some checking into something like that already.

    Why have the book so big? The electronic version would be easier to use, too.

    I would also like to see each type coin to be described with metal, size, and weight. It is very inconsistent right now. I'm sure it would take an edition, or maybe 6 editions, to get it done. There will always be mistakes, but for the most part they are fixed when they are caught. Krause is already doing a great job picturing a very high percentage of the coins. >>



    So long as they don't separate the moderns or any modern series I wouldn't
    mind another separation. Frankly, 1945 to date would be fine but a few series
    actually spanned the war like the Portuguese cu/ ni.

    The current separation seems contrived and arbitrary to me and more geared
    to the ease of printing large catalogs than their usefullness to collectors.

    I like NCLT and don't mind seeing them included but they take up a great deal
    of room and some are barely even coins at all. The Marshall Islands stuff are
    just tokens and medals more than coins.

    They could split it into two and have one catalog to Panama (if it recovers from
    oblivion) and the other to Zimbabwe.

    There is no "natural" divide at 1800 or 1900 or 2000 other other than the first
    two numbers of the date. There is a natural divide in coinage at 1945. There's
    another where mintages increased around 1820.

    One might say there's a natural divide at 1975 when NCLT issues began appear-
    ing widely but this doesn't affect the regular coinage in any meaningful way. It
    isn't so important how they deal with the NCLT as it is how the regular coinage
    is handled.
    Tempus fugit.
  • HoledandCreativeHoledandCreative Posts: 2,729 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I, too, agree that issues shouldn't be divided. They should be in both editions in their entirety if they span 1975.

    Splitting the book alphabetically wouldn't ease the searching through all the "moderns". That is probably me being selfish as I don't really want to search through them.

    Splitting alphabetically would be better for Krause. It would force most of us to buy 2 books. Not a happy thought.

    Moderns from 1975 to date in a single volume sounds perfect. I don't know anyone collecting 2001 to date.

    Someone from Krause, comment, please.
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