Whitman Publishing announces the release of the 15th edition of A Catalog of Modern World Coins, 1850–1964, by R.S. Yeoman, edited by Arthur L. Friedberg. The 544-page book is available nationwide as of October 2023, in bookstores and online.

The revised and edited 15th edition features retail valuations by coin type for 300 nations and states, in up to four grade levels. Editor Arthur Friedberg and his team of experts from around the globe provide an accurate snapshot of the exciting market for more than 11,000 world coins.

The 1st edition of the Catalog of Modern World Coins was published in 1957 (at which time it listed coins from 1850 to 1955). Collectors quickly nicknamed it the “Brown Book,” after its cover color—similar to the “Red Book,” as author R.S. Yeoman’s Guide Book of United States Coins was popularly known.

Modern World Coins is an introductory coin book, a framework for organizing a collection of coins of the world by type or design. The editors have made every effort to illustrate as many coin types as possible. The book contains more than 7,300 actual-size coin photographs to aid in identification.

Coins are listed chronologically by nation, and grouped by metallic content, design, and denomination. Average retail values are shown for each type and denomination, in multiple grades. In addition, a substantial number of rare dates that sell for higher premiums are shown separately, just beneath their respective type-listing charts. Similarly, prices are given for nearly 800 Proof coins and Proof sets.

Modern World Coins is useful for beginner and advanced collectors as a handy source of information to supplement more complex books that list all dates, mints, and varieties. Friedberg, who has edited the book since the 1980s, says, “I have always enjoyed using the Catalog of Modern World Coins. The period of 1850 to 1964 is where you find the greatest concentration of collecting interest for world coins. There is a strong demand for a reasonably priced book that gives collectors all the information they need in a portable format that’s more concise than the larger telephone-book–sized references.”

Dozens of specialist dealers, collectors, researchers, and historians contributed their time and knowledge to make the 15th edition the most comprehensive and accurate to date.

One major upgrade in the 15th edition is the arrangement of the gross weights, finenesses, and net metal contents of every country’s silver and gold coins, 1850 to 1964, in both grams and troy ounces. In past editions these data, compiled in great detail by numismatic researcher Holland Wallace, were gathered in an appendix. In the 15th edition, this information was moved to each country’s catalog listing, for more convenient access. In almost every case these coin weights and finenesses are from official sources such as mint reports and other government publications.

Other major changes in the 15th edition include reorganization of the Canadian provinces, which are now listed under their own names (while cross-referenced under “Canada”); substantial reorganization of the coinage of China; and expansion of the listings for Colombia. Throughout, the typography of the book has been updated for improved readability.

As in prior editions, Modern World Coins includes coverage of 25 German princely states, free cities, and other independent bodies that issued their own coinage, from the Grand Duchy of Anhalt to the Kingdom of Wurttemberg. It also covers the coinage of 56 Indian princely states, from Alwar to Travancore, and 10 Mexican Revolutionary states, from Aguascalientes to Sinaloa. Medals, patterns, and tokens are generally excluded, but bullion issues are included for some of the popular series.

For researchers, the 15th edition includes an appendix of the coinage standards of the Latin (1865–1926) and Scandinavian (1874–1958) Monetary Unions; an alphabetical listing of world coin denominations, from the abbasi of Afghanistan to the Polish zloty; and an index for ease of looking up information.

R.S. Yeoman, the book’s original author, wrote about the appeal of world coins in 1984: “There are dozens of different ways that you can collect foreign coins. You can select gold coins of the world; crown-size coins (approximately U.S. silver-dollar size) from various countries; type coins of a particular country; commemorative coins; a single coin from each country; all types of coins from a single country or group of countries; or coins of a different variety or design—for example, coins with fishes on them, or coins with foreign rulers. As you get into it, you can view and consider many other areas.” He pointed out that most foreign coins “are not collected by date and mintmark, the way American coins are, but rather by type. It is for this reason that the [Yeoman and Krause-Mishler] numbering systems in this book are so useful. This is how most coins have been collected for years.”

“This handy volume is perfect for today’s world-coin hobby,” says Whitman publisher Dennis Tucker. He describes the book as “small enough to easily hold, carry, and read, but packed with useful photos, data, and valuations.”

On October 3, 2023, Whitman Publishing released Safeguarding History, the memoirs of internationally famous artifacts collector and dealer Kenneth W. Rendell. Subtitled Trailblazing Adventures Inside the Worlds of Collecting and Forging History, the 328-page book shares Rendell’s business philosophy as well as his life story, and shows why he’s known as the “Indiana Jones” of the collecting world.

Among coin collectors, Rendell is noted as a founding member of the Rittenhouse Society, a contemporary of Q. David Bowers and Kenneth Bressett. He was a prodigy coin dealer while in his teens in the 1950s, selling colonial coppers to such luminaries as Ambassador R. Henry Norweb, and a contributor to the Red Book at the age of sixteen.

Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote the foreword to Safeguarding History. Here, she shares her thoughts on Kenneth Rendell and his autobiography:

“This eloquent, captivating, and moving memoir takes the reader on the journey of an eleven-year-old boy, Kenneth Rendell, growing up in a poor neighborhood, who, with the sale of a single 1806 half dollar, experiences the magic of collecting and goes on to become the world’s most notable collector, dealer, and appraiser in historical letters, documents, and artifacts.

And what a journey it is! We share his excitement when, at the age of sixteen, he meets a dealer in presidential documents and trades his entire British coin collection for a group of presidential letters. While old coins were great historical artifacts, he fell in love with handwritten letters that provide a window into the hopes and dreams—the very soul—of figures who have shaped the destiny of our country. Collecting became an emotional pursuit as well as an intellectual one.

In an essay on the nature of collectors, the philosopher Walter Benjamin argues that collecting allows children a small corner where they can order a disordered world. For the teenage boy whose father fell into bankruptcy and committed suicide, collecting provided a sanctuary where he could be on his own, free from the pandemonium of his household.

He had found his vocation, the arena in which he felt he was most vitally alive, when, as the philosopher William James suggested, a voice inside speaks and says, ‘This is the real me!’ And how lucky we are to share in his passion, to savor the moments he comes upon breathtaking documents and letters—manuscript pages written by Henry David Thoreau, a George Washington letter discovered in a New Hampshire auction, a Thomas Jefferson letter about the future of slavery. (This letter, which Rendell bought in the early 1970s for $20,000—a princely sum when still in his twenties—and then immediately sold to Malcolm Forbes for $25,000, was eventually sold again in the 1990s after Forbes died for $700,000.)

Over the decades, as Rendell’s collecting interests expand from modern to ancient times, from North America to every continent in the world, we meet a cast of intriguing characters and are privy to an inside look at the complex world of collecting—a world filled with adventures, mysteries, sensational hoaxes, thefts, and even murders.

Self-taught in foreign languages, culture, and history, Rendell becomes an expert in authenticating handwritten materials and documents and is called upon as a special consultant in a number of high-profile cases that read like fast-moving detective stories.

A master storyteller, with keen insight into the motivations of people, Rendell brings the reader into the drama of uncovering the biggest hoaxes in modern literary times—the discovery of sixty volumes of a purported Hitler diary; the dramatic unearthing of a diary by Jack the Ripper, promising to reveal the mind of one of the most notorious serial killers; the sensational Mormon White Salamander letter and the related murders.

We follow Rendell’s painstaking work that revealed the forgeries—his examination of the individual characteristics of handwriting and the known habits of the writer. A uniformity in the writing and the ink used would suggest a diary written in a short period rather than over a number of years. He knew how to date the ink, the paper, the bindings, the use of words not yet in use in colloquial language. In Jack the Ripper’s supposed 1880s diary, the use of the phrase ‘one off,’ which was not in common use until 1925, was a clear warning signal.

Rendell’s role in debunking these multi-million-dollar hoaxes landed him in the front pages of newspapers and magazines. In print and on television, he was dubbed the Indiana Jones of the collecting world.

In each case, other independent experts had authenticated the material, and a great deal of time and money had been spent in publicity and publishing rights. Rendell concluded that publishers had seen only what they wanted to see—beating the competition, fame and fortune.

There are additional compelling stories behind Rendell’s creation of a 10,000-book library for Bill and Melinda Gates, and the building of the most comprehensive World War II collection that follows the war from beginning to end through tens of thousands of documents and artifacts, including Hitler’s writings, Nazi party banners, anti-Semitic broadsides, Resistance newspapers, Churchill’s propaganda posters and manuscripts, a first edition of Anne Frank’s diary, and the surrender documents.

In the end, however, this compelling memoir is the story of a boy who rises above adversity with ambition, a curiosity that allows him to keep learning his entire life, a powerful work ethic, an ability to think outside the box, and, most importantly, a recognition that reputation and character are the true driving forces of success.”

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Doris Kearns Goodwin is a historian and presidential biographer, international keynote speaker, and New York Times #1 best-selling author. Her book No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II earned the Pulitzer Prize in history. She is the author of other bestsellers including Wait Till Next Year, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys (adapted into an award-winning television miniseries), and Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream