Contributor’s newsletter introduction (Quarter Three)

We have had an extremely busy and exciting year at F+W Media and Krause Publications! In the Numismatic group, we have instituted some premium changes to our data, including the establishment of many new price fields for high-grade examples. You will begin to see them in our Standard Catalog of World Coins 1901-2000, 45th edition, and SCWC 2001-Date, 12th edition, which should be back from the printer any day now. The vibrant markets where these high grades are being sought and sold should continue to provide nice growth for the numismatic trade, and we hope these changes to our SCWC titles will offer some continuity as this trend expands. A big “Thank you” goes out to Michael Chou and company for their help in achieving this goal.

Specifically for the SCWC 2001-Date, 12th edition, we made a big push to enter as many new listings as humanly possible. We added nearly 100 pages and filled them with over 1,000 new types and nearly 500 new images. While many of you have helped with this project, including most of the world’s Mints, a big “Thank you” goes out to Melvyn Kassenoff, who has tirelessly pursued the addition of circulation dates and types, as well as commemoratives, for a long list of countries throughout the world.

Tracy Schmidt has done a fine job of refining and improving the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money series with her work on the 16th edition of the SCWPM General Issues and the 23rd edition of the SCWPM Modern Issues, both currently available. Many of you have taken a renewed interest and are working closely with Tracy to ignite forward progress for these volumes, for which we thank you sincerely. In fact, you can all take some pride in having achieved recognition of this work in the form of a Numismatic Literary Guild award presented to the 23rd edition of the SCWPM Modern Issues at the annual NLG dinner in Denver at this year’s ANA show. Currently, Tracy is beginning work on a 24th edition of the SCWPM Modern Issues, for which you may have already received working files. Contact Tracy directly if you have input for this series.

But enough about the first half of 2017 and on to what is planned for the fall months and into 2018. Currently we are working on a 7th edition of the SCWC 1601-1700, with a planned Spring 2018 release. The 24th edition SCWPM Modern Issues is in the works, as mentioned above. The 46th edition of the SCWC 1901-2000 will get moving in a few months with a release in early Summer 2018, so Excel sheets should be coming your way soon. The 13th edition of the SCWC 2001-Date will involve a few other editors, taking some of the immense pressure off me. We will have Tracy Schmidt working on most of the major countries’ modern commemorative issues, while Kim Frankenhoff will focus on Canada, Mexico and the United States.

I will be handling circulation types and new dates and already have in hand lots of basic information in this area from many of you. Please remember when you submit new issues information to make it as complete as possible. It is more important for us to have all the information gathered and orderly than it is for us to receive it at first announcement. The numbering of types remains so much more logical when you take the time to compile in a manner similar to the SCWC list ordering. Contact me directly if you are interested in participating in any of the above three SCWC projects. In particular, if you are specializing in a specific country and would be willing to coordinate the compilation of new issues information for that country, drop me a line. This approach to contributing to the SCWC 2001-Date has proved very successful in the test cases we have established thus far.

Our Special Projects initiative has been quite successful the past two years, and we have plans to expand our options moving forward. If you would like to participate in a special project, out of the normal production period, please contact me with your thoughts. At this time, I would like to consider projects for the SCWC 2001-Date involving new images, set listings and mintages. Also, for a projected 9th edition of the SCWC 1801-1900 (which would not be in production until summer of 2018), I would like to establish a price revision effort to bring things in line with two years of market adjustments. We hope to be able to launch these Special Projects well in advance of production periods to give you, our contributors, ample time to research and organize your work. Once a book begins production, time becomes very limited and prioritizing what can be done often becomes necessary, leaving good work to wait for a future edition.

Finally, I wanted to inform all of you of a development in electronic data. The DVDs and CDs of our catalogs, which we have produced as consumer products since 2008, are being retired from retail sales offerings. Beginning in 2017, CDs will only be produced for you, our loyal contributors. We have eliminated consumer packaging but will continue to have special cover art on these CDs, which will be produced in very limited numbers and will only be issued to our contributors. The CDs for SCWPM Modern Issues, 23rd edition, were already mailed to you, and the CDs for the SCWC 1901-2000, 45th edition, and SCWC 2001-Date, 12th edition, are at the burners now and will be mailed to you as soon as they are available for me to do so.

Best,

Tom Michael

F + W Media – Krause Publications

700 East State Street

Iola WI 54990

Phone: 715.445.4612 ext. 13280

Email: Tom.Michael@fwmedia.com