Have you ever looked at an expensive coin and wondered what it cost 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, or even 50 years ago?
I have. In fact, every now and then, I enjoy looking at old price guides just to get a sense of the kinds of prices I would have paid if only I bought the same coin several years ago.
In most cases, prices always seem to increase, but there are those coins which have gone down in value, too.
Finding old coin price guides and coin value guides has gotten easier in recent years thanks to auction web sites like eBay.
But yard sales, garage sales, and flea markets also make for great places to locate old coin books, magazines, and publications.
There is a fairly significant market for old coin publications.
Vintage Coin Price Guides
Perhaps one of the most enthusiastic arms of collecting old coin books belongs to the large group of people that collect vintage editions of the famous and well-respected A Guide Book of United States Coins. This beloved, annually updated coin price guide is also well-known in numismatic circles as “The Red Book.”
In recent years, The Red Book has added to its list of coin prices a guide to the values of earlier editions of A Guide Book of United States Coins.
It may interest you to know that the earliest editions of The Red Book (which was first published in 1947) can be worth hundreds of dollars. Later editions can cost as little as only a couple dollars.
However, don’t let the price of those early editions of A Guide Book of United States Coins keep you from picking up a copy. Many people are unaware of the value of such vintage coin books and often sell them at yard and garage sales for pennies on the dollar!
Vintage Coin Magazines
Coin magazines are a great way to get a feel for the pulse of the coin market during a given time.
Usually published on a monthly basis, most coin magazines not only include coin prices but also articles which often reflect the numismatic buzz of the time.
For that reason, reading old coin magazines can be another great way to get a feel for where the coin market was months, years, or decades earlier.
I’m the Coin Editor here at TheFunTimesGuide. My love for coins began when I was 11 years old. I primarily collect and study U.S. coins produced during the 20th century. I’m a member of the American Numismatic Association (ANA) and the Numismatic Literary Guild (NLG) and have won multiple awards from the NLG for my work as a coin journalist. I’m also the editor at the Florida United Numismatists Club (FUN Topics magazine), and author of Images of America: The United States Mint in Philadelphia (a book that explores the colorful history of the Philadelphia Mint). I’ve contributed hundreds of articles for various coin publications including COINage, The Numismatist, Numismatic News, Coin Dealer Newsletter, Coin Values, and CoinWeek. I’ve authored nearly 1,000 articles here at The Fun Times Guide to Coins (many of them with over 50K shares), and I welcome your coin questions in the comments below!
