The First Edition Was Written During World War II, and Published in 1946.

Collectors Have Bought More Than 25 Million Copies Over the Years.
Best-Selling Annual Guide Prices Nearly 8,000 Items;
Reports Dramatic Market and Hobby Changes;
Covers Circulating, Commemorative, and Bullion Coins

(Pelham, AL) — Whitman Publishing announces that the Diamond Anniversary 75th edition of the coin-collecting hobby’s annual Guide Book of United States Coins (popularly known as the “Red Book”) will debut April 6, 2021. The new volume includes completely updated prices and auction data reflecting the current market for collectible U.S. coins, along with historical information and guidance on how to build valuable collections. The Red Book can be pre-ordered online (including at Whitman.com) in several formats, and after April 6 will be available from booksellers and hobby shops nationwide.

Coin collectors have used the Red Book to value their collections since the 1st edition was published in 1946. Today, Senior Editor Jeff Garrett coordinates the book’s support network of more than 100 professional coin dealers and researchers. He credits the Red Book’s 75 years of success to teamwork: “Whitman relies on a nationwide group of active retailers, auctioneers, historians, and other specialists with decades of experience. Thanks to their expertise we have the most current and accurate market information and recent scholarship for every coin series.”

Research Editor Q. David Bowers has described the Red Book as a one-book library on American coins. “In a single convenient volume, you get photographs and details on every U.S. series from the 1790s to the current year’s commemoratives and circulating coins,” Bowers said. “The Red Book makes mintage data, coin designs, specifications, grading instructions, and market values easy to access and understand.”

Editor Emeritus Kenneth Bressett has worked on the Red Book since 1959, and was the right-hand man to the book’s author, R.S. Yeoman. “Every year the Red Book becomes more useful for coin collectors,” Bressett said. “Generations of hobbyists have found it indispensable. We are delighted to note that in its 75th year, the Red Book has crossed the 25-million-copies threshold.”

The 75th-edition Red Book is 464 pages long and prices nearly 8,000 entries in up to 9 grades each, with more than 32,000 retail valuations in total.

The book covers legal-tender United States coins from 1792 to date, from copper half cents to $20 gold double eagles, commemoratives, and bullion, plus earlier coins and tokens that circulated in colonial times. With every new edition the latest coins from the United States Mint are updated—Lincoln cents, Jefferson nickels, Roosevelt dimes, America the Beautiful quarters, Kennedy half dollars, Native American dollars, American Innovation dollars, commemorative coins, bullion coins, and government-packaged coin sets. The book also includes popular specialized collectibles such as error coins, Civil War tokens, Confederate coins, Philippine coins struck under U.S. sovereignty, private and territorial gold pieces, pattern coins, Hawaiian and Puerto Rican coinage, Alaska tokens, So-Called Dollars, and special modern gold coins.

These are illustrated by 2,000 photographs, including enlarged close-ups of rare and valuable die varieties.

Inside the 75th-edition Diamond Anniversary Red Book:

New commemorative coins. The 75th edition features coins from the Mint’s two new commemorative programs for 2021. The National Law Enforcement Memorial and Museum program includes half dollars, silver dollars, and five-dollar gold coins. The Christa McAuliffe commemorative coin is a silver dollar.

Other new U.S. Mint coins and sets. The 75th-edition Red Book includes 96 new Mint products added since the 74th edition. Mintages of circulating coins have been updated across the board using government-supplied data and the latest numismatic research.

Collectors will also find complete coverage of the full range of American Eagle and other popular bullion coins and sets (in silver, gold, platinum, and palladium), with mintages and values for each.
Significant new coins this year include the “Washington Crossing the Delaware” quarter dollar, the 1921–2021 centennial “Morgan” and “Peace” dollars, and new reverse designs for the American Silver Eagle and American Gold Eagle.

A study of foreign coins that circulated in America. The Diamond Anniversary Red Book continues a section that debuted with the 70th edition: an overview of foreign coins that circulated as legal tender in the British North American colonies and in the United States until the late 1850s. This includes photographs, history, and pricing for collectible Spanish-American, Dutch, French, and English coins minted from the 1550s to the early 1800s, when Spain’s American colonies won independence.

Recent research. Updates based on recent scholarship can be found in sections including pre-federal coins and tokens, and regular federal issues. Changes reflect research into the 1776-dated Continental Currency pieces; Flying Eagle cent mintages; 1974 aluminum Lincoln cents; and a newly listed doubled-die obverse two-cent piece.

Revamped commemorative coins and sets. The section on commemorative coins has been updated. It also has been extensively revised to group together all products (single coins and sets) for each coinage program. The specific contents of each government-issued commemorative set have been reviewed and confirmed or updated. And a new section, “Other Collectible Sets,” includes special non-program sets like Coin and Chronicles Sets and Coin and Currency Sets.

The latest Mint data and information. Details of the upcoming Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020 have been spelled out. Every current coin program has been updated with available mintages. New coin listings include 42 standard Mint issues, Lincoln cents through American Innovation dollars; 12 commemorative issues; 33 bullion issues; the final America the Beautiful quarter (for the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site) and related five-ounce silver bullion issues; the latest Native American dollar; the American Innovation dollars for New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, and North Carolina; the Mint’s first-ever colorized coins; two new commemorative programs; and the 2021 annual Proof and Mint sets.

New photographs. The Diamond Anniversary edition is updated with 78 new photographs, including many silver and gold coins from the 1700s and early 1800s; new close-ups of privy marks and lettering varieties; pattern coins; private and territorial gold pieces; and other colonial and modern coins.

Auction records. As in past years, collectors benefit from the Red Book’s recent auction records provided for significant rare coins. Typeset throughout the charts are nearly 200 notable auction results. Combined with the listed retail prices, the auction data help advanced collectors understand the modern market for high-priced rarities.

In addition, the appendix of the “Top 250 U.S. Coin Prices Realized at Auction” has been fully updated. A record 118 auction sales were higher than $1 million each. The coin at #250, a 1795 Draped Bust silver dollar [BB-52], sold for $646,250—more than $28,000 higher than last year’s coin in that ranking.

A bibliography for further research. In a positive measure of the health of the hobby and ongoing numismatic research, the Red Book’s newly revised and updated bibliography includes more than two dozen standard references published over the past five years.

The cover of the spiral-bound Diamond Anniversary 75th-edition Red Book features three significant dollar coins: a Sacagawea golden dollar; an American Silver Eagle with the classic Heraldic Eagle reverse by John Mercanti; and a Morgan silver dollar. The hardcover Diamond Anniversary Red Book has silver-foil imprinting instead of the usual gold-foil, and its back cover features a silver-foil Diamond Anniversary emblem.

All versions and formats (hardcover; spiralbound hardcover; spiralbound softcover; and Large Print) of the 75th-edition Red Book will be available online, and at bookstores and hobby shops nationwide.

(Pelham, Alabama)—Whitman Publishing announces the release of the updated second edition of A Guide Book of Gold Eagle Coins, volume 24 in its popular Bowers Series of numismatic titles. The 448-page book will be available March 2, 2021. It continues in the tradition of the Guide Book of Morgan Silver Dollars and other best-selling “Official Red Book” guides. The full-color volume will be available online (including at Whitman.com) and in bookstores and hobby shops nationwide for $29.95.

As he did in the first edition, author and numismatic researcher Q. David Bowers combines the history of America’s $10 gold coins (minted 1795 to 1933) with coin-by-coin analysis, pricing in multiple grades, auction records, grading guides, and collecting tips to help enthusiasts build and enjoy their own set of gold eagles.

Bowers, nicknamed the “Dean of American Numismatics,” has been researching and writing about U.S. gold coins for more than 60 years. He has studied numismatic catalogs, periodicals, and books on gold coins. More importantly, he has personally examined hundreds of thousands of gold coins, many of them in the process of cataloging the most famous coin collections ever to cross an auction block.

Today these classic American gold coins have become highly popular and accessible for collectors, thanks in part to an influx of gold eagles returning from Europe since the 1950s, and the Internet making it easier than ever to find and purchase rare coins.

Bowers wrote A Guide Book of Gold Eagle Coins for collectors who want to create a valuable and attractive collection. The fully revised and updated second edition contains pricing for every gold eagle by year and mintmark, from the 1790s to 1933. Bowers includes updated details on rarity, advice on collectible grades, market analysis, and more than 50 years of auction records.

The second edition also includes new historical images of the U.S. Mint’s gold coin production, as well as close-up photographs of flaws, such as lintmarks and copper spots, that can detract from a coin’s grade and value.

Readers will find engaging and informative stories of some of the Philadelphia Mint’s earliest coinage, the famed Turban Head eagles of 1795 to 1804; the long-running series of Liberty Head eagles, minted for nearly 70 years from the 1830s to the early 1900s; and the innovative Indian Head eagles of 1907 to 1933. Bowers also explores famous shipwrecks and hoards of gold coins, the holdings of the National Numismatic Collection, the coins owned by King Farouk of Egypt, the coverage of gold eagles in price guides going back to the 1930s, and other fascinating side journeys.

Because Whitman Publishing is the Official Supplier of the American Numismatic Association, ANA members received 10% off when ordering the book directly from the publisher. ANA members can also borrow it for free from the Association’s Dwight N. Manley Numismatic Library.

The Royal Mint has today released a selection of coins that have been subjected to the rigours of the 2020 Trial of the Pyx, and offer the chance to own a piece of history. Each year The Royal Mint sends a selection of coins to the coveted ceremony at Goldsmiths’ Hall, and those now available to buy include:

• The 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Queen Victoria 2019 UK £5 Gold Proof Coin
• The Queen’s Beasts The Falcon of The Plantagenets 2019 UK Five-Ounce Gold Proof Coin
• A Celebration of Sherlock Holmes 2019 UK 50p Gold Proof Coin

One of the highlights of the 2020 Trial of the Pyx was the presence of the two-kilo and five-kilo editions of the Una and the Lion 2019 UK Gold Proof Coin.

The Trial of the Pyx is one of the oldest judicial practices in the United Kingdom. At the Trial, samples of circulating and commemorative coins produced by The Royal Mint are selected at random and weighed for accuracy. Now held at Goldsmiths’ Hall, London, the Trial was first recorded publicly in 1282, and is presided over by the Queen’s Remembrancer or their deputy, who are amongst the highest legal representatives in the country, assisted by an independent jury of members of the Goldsmiths’ Company.

During the ceremony jury members are presented with Pyx boxes (Pyx being the Latin word for chest). The coins are picked from a random selection provided by The Royal Mint and placed in copper bowls. The remainder are placed in wooden bowls and are then weighed for accuracy. The Trial is then adjourned until May to allow time for trial coins to be tested by the Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office and the National Measurement Office, however due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this year’s verdict was delivered virtually, for the first time in the ceremony’s history.

Graeme Smith, Queen’s Assay Master at The Royal Mint comments: “Every year coins produced by The Royal Mint go to the Trial of the Pyx, a ceremony which tests and confirms the quality and accuracy of each coin and is something which The Royal Mint prides itself on. The Royal Mint is the only mint in the world to undergo the rigorous independent testing that the Trial demands. I am delighted that the tested coins can now be purchased by coin collectors, this is the ultimate coin investment, allowing customers to own a true piece of British coin history that has been a part of one of the oldest judicial trials in the world.”

Whilst the Trial is steeped in ancient traditions, and attended by officers with some of the oldest job titles in the land (The Master and Deputy Master of The Royal Mint, The Queen’s Assay Master, The Queen’s Remembrancer), the Trial of the Pyx is as relevant today as it has always been, and continues to play an extremely important role, supporting The Royal Mint’s international reputation for excellence in production.

Every Trial of the Pyx coin being offered to collectors is accompanied by a collection of materials illustrating the coin’s distinct place in history. The range of coins available may carry small marks or smudges from having been handled during the Trial of the Pyx. To view the full range of exclusive coins and sets from the Trial of the Pyx visit: https://www.royalmint.com/our-coins/events/trial-of-the-pyx/