Contributor’s Newsletter Schedule (Quarter One, 2016)

Summer is gone, fall is behind us and winter, my friends, has blanketed Wisconsin. But working on the Standard Catalog of World Coins 1901-2000 44th edition and Standard Catalog of World Coins 2001-Date 11th edition provides the perfect means of keeping warm.

Again this year Bill Noyes and I will be working to adjust the MS grades and values, as well as reduce the values for silver commemoratives, which are currently glutting the market and wandering homeless. This season will also allow me to begin the massive task of reducing values for gold commemoratives, which are similarly unattractive due to declines in the spot price of gold. Those silver and gold commemoratives with low mintages will be holding their values much better, to be sure, but those with high mintages and seemingly limitless mintage limits have not fared so well.

This process has been aided by many contributors who have sent in their Excel sheet corrections and are similarly making needed adjustments. Bill has also taken the time to talk with many dealers, and both of us have done the needed research of Internet and auction sales, as well as tapping our knowledge of hoards and past imports to refine and populate available grades. It’s a time-consuming job, but everyone is tackling it with outstanding vigor.

At present, I have been working on the SCWC 1901-2000 44th and SCWC 2001-Date 11th in tandem, adding new circulation dates and recent mintages provided by avid contributor Melvyn Kassenoff. Mel has been working on Excel sheets for the first time this production season and is adapting well. He has offered several suggestions to improve our Excel sheet usability, which you may notice next time you use one.

As a reminder, our editorial production periods on these two books were planned to be:

This means that the bulk of the research, data entry, page creation and design work will be done during these time periods. During this same timeframe, we have been editing and creating pages for the U.S. Coin Digest, which goes to the printer soon. North American Coins and Prices and Standard Catalog of United States Paper Money will be coming up also during the production periods for the SCWC titles.

After all of these projects are completed or nearing completion, we will begin preparing Excel sheets for contributor updates on the Standard Catalog of World Coins 1701-1800 7th edition. This will be our large summer project for 2016 and I would expect the production period to begin in June and last through September. I plan to email these spreadsheets in May 2016, so if you have any special requests, special project ideas, change of address or email address, need different countries than normal or wish to receive your spreadsheets early, please contact me now to discuss options.

For a glimpse into the future of database and catalog updating, please read the final section of this newsletter. Stay warm and safe this winter, my friends, and enjoy every sunny day that comes your way!