Two Standard Catalogs Down -Now on to German

Gold Book & 19th Century Done, Now for the German Coins

It has been one really hectic period the past six months since the last 20th and 21st Century Standard Catalogs of World Coins were completed. Those two books have been out in the market for a while now and we have been busy creating revised and updated editions of two more books - the Standard Catalog of World Gold Coins 6th edition and the Standard Catalog of World Coins 1801-1900 6th edition.

It is interesting to note that in the four years since the 5th edition of the Standard Catalog of World Gold Coins was edited and updated, spot gold prices have advanced from about $410 to around $1050 today. You can do the math, that's about two and a half times higher. Needless to say, I'd recommend purchasing a new edition to harvest the benefits of the long months of time, effort and knowledge invested in this new edition by our contributors and staff.

The same can be said of the new 1801-1900 Standard Catalog of World Coins. Much of the contributor input was added to the database during the spring and summer months, but the final updating to values that I did this fall brought out some very significant increases over a large portion of the country listings. The past edition was completed in 2006, when spot gold was at $650 an ounce and spot silver topped at $12.50 an ounce. Today of course, gold is near $1050 and silver is hovering around $17.50. These spot prices led to higher melt values for the low end grades of hundreds of types, but the most significant changes we made for this new 6th edition came in relation to high collector demand and limited supplies in the higher grades of popular types throughout the country listings. The book won't be out until later this fall, but you can see most of the price changes on our NumisMaster website right now for a moderate subscription fee. Take a look at www.NumisMaster.com

With these two big projects complete, I have moved on to another special project that will fill much of my time for the next twelve months. A 3rd edition of the Standard Catalog of German Coins has been scheduled for fall 2010 release. Doug Nicol has completed German coin listings back into the 1500's and Merna and Merry Dudley have been entering Doug's write-ups exclusively for the last few months. Many states have complete listings for their time periods of existance and now the work begins on adding values and images to those listings. Several states have been selected for digital download release during the early months of 2010 and those are the ones I am tackling first. We want people to see how the work has progressed and listings expanded from the 2nd edition. The digital dowloads should provide this, but of course, you can always log onto www.NumisMaster.com to see the latest in our listings for any country, including the extensive run of German States.

Contributors are also stepping up to help in polishing the German States listings. The first twelve States selected for digital downloads have been send out to contributors for their input and suggestions. Many of these experts will be helping with adding values and images to the listings, but if you feel that you too could make a contribution to this project, please contact me by commenting on this posting, commenting on specific coins on www.NumisMaster.com or emailing me directly.