KevA

That will the end result anyways, I don't know who I'm kidding - library-building is another hobby of mine. Yeah. I've been doing a bit of research into the hammered half-crowns over the last couple of days - I find them very appealing, and the metallurgy/technology behind their manufacture is one of my "pet" interests (being a metalworker). I can tell it's going to be a slippery slope, although the high grade ones are quite beyond my means at the moment... so books it is!

Wow, thanks very much for the warm welcome folks! The advice on the books is appreciated - I'm certain that I'll acquire most of them as time progresses, but the question of where to start is always a tough one. I'm thinking CCGB as a general text and Groom as a collection-specific text to start (since what I have at the moment is 20th century) - but I don't imagine it will be long before I start dipping my toes in other centuries... Don't tempt me! I have several non-silver pre-decimal coins given to me by my grandfather - the only reason I settled on half-crowns is that they're the only silver pre-decimal I owned already. As an outsider, it's a bit daunting to consider the long history of issues and varieties in every denomination, especially since Canadian coinage is relatively young...

Evening folks! Just a new member here that wants to pop in and say hi... I've been collecting coins off-and-on since I was a kid, when my grandfather would give me handfuls of his duplicates (I remember being confused about why Queen Elizabeth wasn't on them...). Canadian, U.S., "world" - you name it, it would go into one of my binders of 2x2 pages. But just recently I've (ruthlessly) pared down my "accumulation" back to Canadian silver coinage, Roman silver coinage from the Severan Dynasty, and have branched out into UK pre-decimal silver coinage. For the moment, I've started building up a small collection of 20th century half-crowns, with the intention of moving backwards and eventually acquiring a decent example of a hammered half-crown. I heard from a member that I'd learn a lot here, so here I am... Because I love good reference books (I've yet to meet a collector that doesn't), I'd like to share a book list that was suggested to me as a starting point for the specialization I've picked. I haven't gone shopping for them yet, still trying to assess the merits of each before spending money on them - but I'd like some opinions if you wouldn't mind: Coins of England and the United Kingdom (Spink) English Silver Coins Since 1649 (Rayner) British Silver Coins Since 1816 (Davies) The Identification of British 20th Century Silver Coin Varieties (Groom) Coincraft's' Standard Catalogue of English and UK Coins 1066 to Date (Lobel) Collectors' Coins Great Britain 1760-1970 Also, if anyone can suggest any good auction catalog or museum collection catalogs (for the older stuff, obviously) it would be appreciated. Thanks very much! I'm off to do some reading on the forum...