Coin Book Reviews

Standard Catalogue of World Gold Coins by Krause

The Telephone Book
The first "Krause" was published in 1972, as a single volume, it now consumes four volumes each covering a century, plus "World Gold Coins", first published in 1985, and now in its 5th edition.

The Fifth Edition
Our copy of the fifth (2005) edition contains 1,200 pages, over 20,000 full size illustrations, and we estimate over 200,000 different coins listed, each in up to four different grades of preservation. Includes almost every known coin since 1901, covering the entire 20th century.

Contents
It is worth reading the opening sections of the catalogue before starting to use it. These include Introduction, Table of Contents, Foreign Exchange Tables, Country Index, User's Guide which gives a lot of practical advice on identifying coins, Coin Sizing Chart, International Numerics, Instant Identifier, Hejira Date Conversion Chart, Coin Denominations List, Grading Chart, Gold Platinum & Palladium Bullion Value Chart, Mint Index, Mint Data, Monograms and Eastern Mint Names. These sections are followed by the main listings section of the book. There are two photographs of almost every coin type, showing the obverse and reverse sides full size. This makes it easy to find the right coin by size, although it does make listings for small coins more difficult to work with, however this is a minor quibble as the book would be even larger if it had to include a larger photograph of each coin. Each country has a brief but very useful and informative demographic and historical summary before its coin listings.

World Gold Coins
Contains almost complete listings of every gold coin for over the past four centuries. It also includes platinum and palladium issues. We say "almost" because in a work of this magnitude, it must be almost impossible to include every known coin. New rarities come to light almost every year, and Krause do a remarkable job of keeping their database updated. We ourselves send numerous reports each year about missing coins, errors, omitted images, and although we don't get time to check up, we presume these get added to the next volume, as we occasionally, but not always, get an acknowledgement from Krause Publications.
Each year, there are also many new issues, and it is perfectly understandable that there is an inevitable delay before some of these make the catalogue, especially considering how poor many world mints are at providing timely information.
Although most of the information is included in the four volumes of Krause World Coins catalogues, we find it pays us to have this book also, even though it carries a $100 price tag.
For any dealer in gold coins, a copy of this book is a must, and for most collectors of gold coins, or any precious metal except silver, this book should also be on their bookshelves.

Price
5th edition, published 2005, 1220 pages
Price: $100 US / £59.95 UK
This book is currently out of print but as soon as we receive any further information we will update this page.

Postage & Packing
This book weighs almost 3 kilos with packaging, so it is quite expensive to mail:
UK Standard Parcels £10
For other countries, please ask for a quote.