ADVENTURES WITH RARE COINS

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The One Hundred Greatest Items Of United States Numismatic Literature Rank: Number 72

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Clain-Stefanelli 12249

John J. Ford felt strongly enough about this work to contribute a five page foreword, revealing between the lines that buried underneath a “suffer no fools” façade was an insatiable curiosity driven by mythology as much as by mammon. Bowers more than lives up to Ford’s expectation, delivering a full helping of the romance and lore that is numismatics. Taking a simple idea like the nickel, for example, Q. David effortlessly riffs on any number of seemingly unrelated topics, from early motion picture theaters to proof sets with “fork marks,” and neatly ties his toolbox of tales into a surprisingly coherent chronology. Every page presents yet another engaging story, and interspersed are delightful period illustrations, many of them the “needle in a haystack” sort so indicative of a deep immersion in American history. Bowers’ “combination of the pedantic with the romantic,” as Eric Newman put it, once again reminds us that questions of valuation or even rarity are merely footnotes to a far richer narrative.

1^st Edition

BOWERS, Q. David. ADVENTURES WITH RARE COINS.
Los Angeles, CA: 1979
305pp
Quarto
Hardbound: Pictorial Boards