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What's the best coin Mag to Subscribe to?



 
 
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  #1  
Old May 18th 04, 09:28 PM
Larry Stoltman
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Default What's the best coin Mag to Subscribe to?

Hello everyone! I was wondering if any of you could tell me the best coin
magazines to subscribe to? I am interested in graded coins and would like
more info on coins in general. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks Larry

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  #2  
Old May 18th 04, 10:37 PM
Gary Loveless
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On Tue, 18 May 2004 15:28:53 -0500, Larry Stoltman
wrote:

Hello everyone! I was wondering if any of you could tell me the best coin
magazines to subscribe to? I am interested in graded coins and would like
more info on coins in general. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks Larry



COIN WORLD

Regards,

Gary


  #3  
Old May 18th 04, 10:51 PM
Bruce Hickmott
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On Tue, 18 May 2004 21:37:22 GMT, Gary Loveless
is alleged to have written:

On Tue, 18 May 2004 15:28:53 -0500, Larry Stoltman
wrote:

Hello everyone! I was wondering if any of you could tell me the best coin
magazines to subscribe to? I am interested in graded coins and would like
more info on coins in general. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks Larry



COIN WORLD

Regards,

Gary


Coin World or Numismatic News. It's a matter of personal taste, they both report
about the same things, neither one scoops the other on a regular basis.

Both will happily send you a couple of sample copies. FWIW, I picked CW but it
was a very close call.

I don't really care for any of the monthly publications.

Recommended Books:

The Redbook
Mint and Coinage - Taxay
Encyclopedia of US coins - Breen (Has some errors, but still best available)

After that, you're looking at specialist publications in your areas of interest.

For graded coins in general, I guess the closest would be the Coin Dealer
Newsletter. It's short and expensive, but it's the best information out there.
Sometimes referred to as the Greysheet.

Bruce
  #4  
Old May 19th 04, 02:26 AM
Harv
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"Larry Stoltman" wrote in message
...
Hello everyone! I was wondering if any of you could tell me the best coin
magazines to subscribe to? I am interested in graded coins and would like
more info on coins in general. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks Larry


Do you want to read page after page of ads in tiny print, with a few
interesting colums now and then, and a monthly price guide in the form of a
glossy magazine included once a month, or do you want to actually learn a
bunch of useful stuff, both about the history of coins, and modern stuff..

Those are gross generalities of course, but if the former, then I'd suggest
Coin World which is thirty something bucks for a six month subscription.
It's a tabloid sized magazine printed on newsprint.

If the latter, Join the ANA for thirty three bucks for a full year and
you'll get their very attractive magazine "The Numismatist" shoved into your
mailbox once a month along with a lot of other perks and benefits..

I get both. From week to week, Coin World is more similar than it is
different. It's useful if you want to look at a LOT of advertising. The
Numismatist is more different than it is similar from month to month. I
haven't measured column space but it seems to have more article content than
advertising. And not the same kind of advertising that Coin World has. It's
also full color and very high quality printing.

One thing I never see mentioned anywhere is that if you do join the ANA,
you'll see your name printed in about the second or third issue you receive
as a new member, along with all the other new members that joined the same
month you did.

Then again, not knowing how fat your wallet is, you can always get both.
There are other magazines out there, another weekly called "Numismatic News"
published by Kraus, which is Coin World's main competitor, and a couple of
glossies also both published by Krause called "Coins" and "Coin Prices."

You can pick up a free sample of any of these publications at most big coin
shows.

There are some other, more specialized coin publications, and some of the
big name dealers send out periodic newsletters for free, one of the best of
which is ANR's "The Numismatic Sun", whose issue #2 I just received. This is
Q. David Bowers' company and he's a living legend in the coin business, and
has a fluid, easy writing style that is very easy to like.. but those I
mentioned are the mainstream ones.

Harv






  #5  
Old May 20th 04, 12:16 AM
Michael E. Marotta
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"Harv" wrote:
"... Join the ANA for thirty three bucks for a full year and
you'll get their very attractive magazine "The Numismatist" shoved into your
mailbox once a month along with a lot of other perks and benefits.."


Of course, NUMISMATIST is an excellent recommendation.

From week to week, Coin World is more similar than it is
different. It's useful if you want to look at a LOT of advertising.


All newspapers that qualify for second class postage permits have
about the same ratio of advertising to content: 28% content.
Advertising makes cheap subscriptions possible. Advertising pays for
content. Stuart Segan often said, "Advertising _is_ content." Some
issues, he would not read a single feature we wrote, but he always
read all the advertisting.

... some of the
big name dealers send out periodic newsletters for free, one of the best of
which is ANR's "The Numismatic Sun", whose issue #2 I just received. This is
Q. David Bowers' company and he's a living legend in the coin business...


Perhaps the most common sobriquet for QDB is "the dean of American
numismatics." I think that he has pulished more books than anyone
else. What is special is that his company has paid other researchers
to write books. His "newsletters" (magazines, really) are definitely
important periodicals for the collector of American coins and related
material. I just had occasion to write about the MOTT TOKEN. Bowers,
through his magazine, has been an important researcher on that topic,
as he has with so many.

Michael
ANA R-162953
  #7  
Old May 20th 04, 05:46 PM
Harv
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"Reid Goldsborough" wrote in message
...


Advertising allows for lower subscription rates.


Next time you're at a supermarket, pull a TV Guide off the little rack next
to the checker and look at the price for a copy. $2.95. $153.40 a year.

Then go to TVGuide.com and look at how much an issue is if you buy a one
year subscription. 25 cents an issue. $13.00 a year. About 1/12th the price.

And what does this tell us??.. Well it tells us that they can sell their
magazine to you for 1/12th the newsstand price and not go out of business
because advertising pays for it, not newsstand sales. And that if you pay
$2.95 a copy for it each week when you do your grocery shopping, you're
literally throwing money away.

Other mass market, high circulation magazines have similar, although not
quite as drastic, price spreads between buying a single copy on a newsstand
and subscribing. Playboy is like $6.00 a copy. You can get a subscription as
low as $1.00 a copy. Magazines like Motor Trend, Car and Driver, and
hundreds of others with press runs in the hundreds of thousands or millions
are $3.95 or $4.95 a copy. Buy a year for about $1.00 a copy. But TV Guide
is the most drastic example of the price difference between buying it an
issue at a time versus a subscription that I can think of.

On magazines with a lower print run, let's take Coin World, which I think
prints 80,000 copies each week, the cover price is $2.50. Buy one each week
and after six months, or 26 issues you've spent $65.00. Subscribe for six
months, the price is $22.97, or $1.13 an issue.

Generally speaking, the lower the print run, the more a subscription costs
but a subscription is _always_ cheaper than buying it one issue at a time..

Maybe the price difference doesn't seem like that much week to week. But if
you take the money you save by subscribing each week and stuff it in a jar,
at the end of the year you're talking about considerable coin, depending on
how many magazines you buy every week or month.

Magazine publishers often play other cute tricks. If you let a subscription
expire, you get an offer in the mail, begging you to subscribe again. You
know the drill. They always look the same. There's a folded letter telling
you how wonderful the magazine is, sometimes going on for page after page,
telling you how much you're going to miss if you don't re-subscribe. Then a
little form to fill out and an envelope to mail it back in. Sometimes the
envelope needs a stamp, sometimes it doesn't. Wait for them to send you the
second or third offer begging you to subscribe again. The price often gets
lower each time and they start throwing in bonuses like sports bags or other
chatzkies to get you to come back. Eventually, they will give up, but you
should always wait for the second or third offer as the price usually gets
lower each time..



Harv

  #8  
Old May 20th 04, 06:19 PM
Edward McGrath
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It only costs $33 a year to join the ANA???

  #9  
Old May 20th 04, 06:55 PM
Reid Goldsborough
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On Thu, 20 May 2004 16:46:21 GMT, "Harv"
wrote:

And what does this tell us??.. Well it tells us that they can sell their
magazine to you for 1/12th the newsstand price and not go out of business
because advertising pays for it, not newsstand sales. And that if you pay


This isn't unique, though, is it? Large discounts for annual or
multiyear subscriptions over single-issue sales is just a type of
volume discount. Publishers would prefer the certainty of a long-term
revenue stream. Organizations do this with lower annual dues if you
pay for more than one year. Buy a thousand uncleaned ancient coins,
and each will cost you far less than if you bought just one. Your
TV Guide example, though, is pretty striking.
  #10  
Old May 20th 04, 07:20 PM
Scot Kamins
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In article ,
Reid Goldsborough wrote:

Publishers would prefer the certainty of a long-term
revenue stream.


Just as a point of clarification, publishers don't value the income from
subscriptions as "income stream" as much as each long-term subscription
is another set of ticks to add to the counter of how many mags are being
distributed. This is the number that determines how much they can charge
for advertising, and it's advertising that accounts for profits. (Often
the price of subscription doesn't cover the cost of publication &
postage.)

Scot Kamins
--
"Speak your truth, even as your voice quakes."
 




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