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Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Information! A Must-Have!
Review: This is an excellent book for anyone collecting Lincoln cents - It lists EVERY known variety of the entire series from 1909! It's great for finding valuable coins you didn't know you had.
Rating: 
Summary: Had the potiential to be better.
Review: This is an interesting book for Lincoln cent collectors. Overall, the book appears to contain a lot of information about varieties. This is no doubt the result of a great deal of background research. There are, however, at least two areas that I puzzled over.The first area is related to the description of blistering. On page 18 in the second paragraph of "Wrong or improperly mixed alloys", it is stated that blistering is caused by residual chemicals left on the planchet after plating. I'm a little puzzled as to how blistering can be caused in this manner, unless the copper is compromised and a contaminant attacks the zinc. A majority of blisters that I've observed using a 30x stereoscope appear to be between the zinc material and the copper plating with no apparent penetration or compromising of the copper plating. The conclusion that I've arrived at after examining the later type of blisters is as follows: 1) The zinc material is not being cleaned properly before the plating process. 2) The plating process traps a contaminant between the zinc material and the copper plating. 3) The contaminant reacts with the zinc, thereby resulting in a blistering effect of the copper. The blistering phenomenon should have been explained in greater detail. The second area has to do with the descriptions and pictures of the 1909S VDB die varieties. Specifically, the description of the Die No 2 variety (page 40) would tend to indicate that the mintmark, while being level with the bottoms of the 9s, would have the same relative position between the 9 and 0 as the Die No 1 variety. The description for the Die No 2 variety seems to be vague on this point. In addition, the picture that is provided for the Die No 2 variety seems to match the description and the picture for the Die No 3 variety. It's obvious that these two pictures are of different coins, but the variety appears to be the same. This leads me to question the picture representation of the Die No 2 variety, a better description would have helped (or maybe the correct picture). I would have liked to ask the author about these to points rather than writing a review, but no e-mail address was provided at Amzazon.com. One more point of frustration - The grading section could have easily included pictures and did not.
Rating:
Summary: Lots of Potential, and Well Polished
Review: This reference is a nice piece, although to me, it falls a bit short of Sol Taylor's Complete Guide to the Lincoln Cent. The book has very good photographic reproduction, and has some interesting information on die varieties and RPMs. It also reveals a lot about some key issues such as the 1909S VDB and 1922 Plain! So where does it fall short? To me, it reads a little too much like a reference. Aside from a few key dates, many of the date listings give very little information on the quality of the coins produced for that issue. This is where Taylor's book seems better suited, as it very often describes the colors, die states, and strikes of virtually every issue. If this is addressed in later editions, than I think this title holds the potential to really achieve a legacy among Lincoln Cent collectors!
Rating:
Summary: Lots of Potential, and Well Polished
Review: This reference is a nice piece, although to me, it falls a bit short of Sol Taylor's Complete Guide to the Lincoln Cent. The book has very good photographic reproduction, and has some interesting information on die varieties and RPMs. It also reveals a lot about some key issues such as the 1909S VDB and 1922 Plain! So where does it fall short? To me, it reads a little too much like a reference. Aside from a few key dates, many of the date listings give very little information on the quality of the coins produced for that issue. This is where Taylor's book seems better suited, as it very often describes the colors, die states, and strikes of virtually every issue. If this is addressed in later editions, than I think this title holds the potential to really achieve a legacy among Lincoln Cent collectors!
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