ISBN: 1-56625-207-5
Price: 19.95
Overall Rating 4 out of 5
Coin Photos – 3.5 out of 5
Coin History/Summary – 5 out of 5
Contextual History – 4 out of 5
Contextual Photos – 3 out of 5
Paragraph/Chapter Flow: 4.5 out of 5
Summary:
This book is not about any specific coin or coin series but is simply as its title implies: a survival manual for buying and selling coins. Travers exposes the dark side of coin collecting from dealers to auctions and counterfeits to altered coins. Though not intended for a young audience, it is a necessity for anyone preparing to make the move from saving pocket change to buying coins.
Throughout the book, Travers continually reminds the reader that the buying/selling of coins is an unregulated industry and risk is at every turn. The most valuable bit of information provided is the years of experience and exposure that Travers has acquired and his willingness to provides us with a real resource on to avoid bad coins, transactions, dealers and all the steps necessary to recover from a disreputable seller.
Travers successfully provides examples of gullible collecting mistakes to deliver his message at the beginning of each chapter. Yet, he also includes interviews with a dealer and a salesman who have deliberately deceived buyers and it's these frank interviews that really hit home that what Travers is trying to tell us is in fact a harsh & cold reality. Another harsh reality is shown to us as Travers documents his continuously being stonewalled by ebay executives only to come to the conclusion that e-bay is not about protecting the coin buyer. Again, the most important message here is that it is an unregulated industry!
The book does have its shortcomings. First are the photo's. Yes there are color photo's but not enough. For all of the altered and counterfeit coins, color photos would have been a welcome site. I find it hard to believe that in this digital age color photos are so complicated to work into a book. Another problem with the photos are that they are dated, the photo's from coin conventions, auctions, clubs, etc… look like they were taken in 1980. Again, is this a problem in the digital age? I'll loan him my digital camera if it helps!
The second problem I had with the book is its dark nature. It is true that there are many people out there that want to rob you blind (and Travers does an excellent job of informing of this) but it doesn't really hit on some of the joys that come with coin collecting. This book could scare away potential new collectors.
The last problem I had is with his advice on ebay. Some additional advice on how to buy on e-bay and what to look for in an e-bay seller would have gone a long way. Like it or not e-bay has it's purpose and you can either ignore it or attempt to understand it.