Swiss Shoot Talers

Swiss Shooting Festival Talers

Lately I have noticed some confusion and concern over the listing of Swiss Shooting Talers in our catalogs. Actually this has been a long-running debate and one which can be viewed from several sides with no definitive answer.

I bring it up again now, because I saw a question on the E-Sylum of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society from Bob Knepper. Bob was looking for illustrations of the Swiss Shooting Talers issued past 1960, so I emailed Wayne Homren, the E-Sylum editor, with the following information:

Regarding Bob Kneppers question about Swiss Shooting Talers. We list them in the Unusual World Coins Catalog, which is in it's 5th edition and available form coin dealers or from our bookstore at http://www.krausebooks.com/product/647/4

Many, but not all, Swiss Shooting Taler types are illustrated in UWC. In the Swiss section you will also find other local Swiss medallic issues and types of limited circulation. I like the Huguenin Freres Talers, which are readily available in the market and feature views of various cities.

We hope to continue adding to these listings, as each new years issues are released and are doing this with the assistance of Craig Keplinger. Craig is a dealer in Swiss coins, with a specialization in the Shooting Festival coins.

Collectors of this series will also want to keep an eye on NumisMaster at http://www.numismaster.com/ta/numis.jsp as the new issues Craig supplies the data for will first be listed there on the website before they appear in a printed work such as UWC. Craig is also working to get all types illustrated on NumisMaster well before we produce a 6th edition of UWC.

Depending on page count and size limits, we also would like to add the Swiss Shooting Talers back into the regular Standard Catalog series at some point in the future. For the moment however, NumisMaster provides a ready and accessible outlet for collectors to keep up to date.

The rest of the discussion regarding Swiss Shooting Talers centers around where they should be listed.

A few years ago the Swiss Shooting Talers were moved from the Standard Catalogs to Unusual World Coins. This was done both for practical and technical reasons. The practical involved our ever expanding page count problems, while the technical revolves around the limited circulation times and legal tender status for this series.

After this move, several dealers, including specialist Craig Keplinger, classical 19th Century coinage dealer Dennis Gill and Islamic specialist and general world coin dealer and cataloger for HeritageScott Cordry, have talked with me about getting the Swiss Shooting Talers back into the regular Standard Catalogs. Former concerns over page count, or arguments over limited circulation aside, their point was that these Festival coins are widely collected and maintain a status as prominent as regular Swiss issues.

They all make a good point and the editors of the SCWC series are listening. In the meantime however, collectors can avoid all these hard copy problems of which catalog the Swiss Shooting Talers will appear in by using NumsiMaster. Being a website, with all the coin, token and medallic listings our catalogs have to offer, NumisMaster provides the data, values and images you need plus the ability to search, pull and arrange them in the structure you want.

It's the best of both worlds at an annual subscription price which is lower than the cost of two of our large paper catalogs.