THE 2025 NBS SYMPOSIUM

The corporate origins of Whitman Publishing, the current owner of the Guide Book, begin in 1907, as West Side Printing in Racine, WI. The company's name was changed to Western Printing & Lithography in 1910, and the firm found a foothold in the children's book business. The more familiar Whitman Publishing brand, technically a subsidiary of Western Printing, was launched in 1916.

In addition to books, the company developed die cutting capability and produced board games, playing cards, and eventually coin boards. Sometime in the mid-1930s Whitman acquired the rights to the coin board as invented by Joseph Kent Post, and the rest, as they say, is history. Garrett noted that the soon-to-be ubiquitous coin board democratized coin collecting and opened the "hobby of kings" to the general public. Jeff himself was introduced to coin collecting via the Whitman folder, in 1969.

Richard Yeo, aka R. S. Yeoman, joined Whitman in 1932 and took charge of the coin board business. Soon the audience consisted of millions of coin collectors, but with little published information to guide them. J. W. Scott, B. Max Mehl, and others, took furtive steps towards creating catalogs and price guides, but none of these gained a mass following. While Mehl's Star Rare Coin Encyclopedia sold well, it remained a "prices paid for" list rather than an authoritative and concise reference.

Whitman first published the "Blue Book" in 1942 as a wholesale guide. Garrett acknowledges Yeoman's foresight in creating the "contributor system," which relied on a large group of numismatic experts (Lee Hewitt, Charles Green, etc.) rather than a single author.

The Guide Book, more popularly known as the "Red Book," was envisioned in the early 1940s but postponed by World War II. Yeoman reflected that the delay ended up being positive in the sense that it provided additional time to develop the concept. Early contributors included Stuart Mosher, Audrey Bebee, Abner Kreisberg, Abe Kosoff, and others. The first printing of 9,000 copies was in 1946, with a 1947 cover date. After selling out, a second printing of the same edition was produced with a similar press run.

The coin business grew substantially in the 1950s and 1960s, and by 1971, Whitman had produced over ten million copies of the Guide Book. Subsequently, Guide Book sales tracked with overall interest in coin collecting. To date, over 25 million copies have been sold. Current sales are on the order of a quarter million copies annually.

About 20 years ago, Whitman approached Garrett about joining the Guide Book editorial team. Garrett first worked on gold coin pricing, having previously published the Encyclopedia of U.S. Gold Coins 1795-1933, with co-author Ron Guth, in 2008. By around 2015, Garrett was overseeing all areas of pricing for the Guide Book. Garrett's background as a dealer in multiple areas of U.S. numismatics served well for this task. During this time the technology for developing pricing evolved from index cards to Excel spreadsheets, although not all the Guide Book contributors were similarly versed in Excel.

With the launch of the "Mega-Red," a greatly expanded edition first published in 2015, Garrett's responsibilities greatly increased, with editorial and pricing work now covering over 8,000 specific issues, including many varieties not listed in the regular Guide Book. This book contained both pricing and expanded editorial content for specialty issues, with substantial contributions from Q. David Bowers. Jeff is currently working on the next "Mega-Red," which will appear in 2026.

Garrett reflected on Ken Bressett's work for Whitman. Ken consulted on the Guide Book before moving to Wisconsin in 1959 when he joined the company full-time. In 1962, Bressett was a co-author, with Eric P. Newman, of The Fantastic 1804 Dollar. Garrett noted that Bressett remained just as fascinated with the coin today and was especially interested in the discovery of the 16th example, which was recently announced by Stack's Bowers. Garrett presented Bressett as a candidate for "the world's most interesting man." Who else dove with Mel Fisher at the Atocha site, as a numismatic authority appointed by a lending bank to appraise the find?

Garrett noted that his first ANA summer seminar, in 1974, was taught by Bressett. Ken developed the ANA grading standards and was elected to the ANA Hall of Fame in 1986. In 1996 he joined the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee and played an important role in the development of the States Quarters program, which was launched in 1999.

Jeff talked about the transition of Whitman Publishing to new ownership, as CDN acquired the company from Anderson Press in 2023. For many years, Whitman was reluctant to make major changes to the Guide Book, as the brand was exceptionally strong and remained a solid seller. This was compounded by a responsibility to "get this book right" as it is the "gateway" for new collectors. Not only is this the entry point, but the Guide Book remains a constantly consulted reference even among advanced collectors.

Charles Anderson approached John Feigenbaum at CDN about acquiring Whitman and held the matter in such confidence that even Garrett was unaware until the transaction was finalized. Garrett viewed the sale as an opportunity to evolve the Red Book brand and welcomed Feigenbaum as an "innovator" willing to "take risks." Jeff noted John's earlier acquisition of the Greysheet and its subsequent migration to a digital platform.

The Red Book is now slightly larger and reflects a more common size format in the book publishing industry. Jeff did ask John to maintain the red color cover! But the more substantial change is on the back end, as the Guide Book now leverages the CDN coin pricing database. Much of this is based on auction records. Jeff no longer spends time on pricing and instead has a role more focused on editorial content. In this capacity, he asks himself "How do collectors collect?" and "What information do they need to enable that pursuit?" Jeff found his previous pricing work sometimes tedious and enjoys this new role.

Jeff points to changes such as the introduction of a photographic grading guide, information on die variety attribution aimed as beginners, and a streamlined section on U.S. commemoratives, in response to the abundance of U.S. Mint product in recent years. For American silver eagles, MS70 pricing is now added, simply because that is how many collectors approach the series.

While editorial content evolves, pricing remains the core of the Guide Book. Jeff covered historical resources for pricing, including old edition of the Greysheet and the David Akers series of books on U.S. gold. Garrett maintains an extensive collection of auction catalogs and remains drawn to the physical format even while acknowledging resources such as Newman Portal.

Jeff is constantly asked for prices on rare coins and notes the challenge of pricing in a collector market as opposed to an investor market, which held sway a generation ago. Today's collectors are more focused on eye appeal, a subjective measure that can be difficult to evaluate. So, how do you produce a single price for all examples of a single issue in a given grade?

Garrett notes that the Red Book price represents the imaginary, average coin for each grade. This is a coin that is not high or low-end for the grade, but simply average. For wholesale vs. retail pricing, Garrett notes that levels will be closer for commodity-type items (an 1881-S Morgan dollar in MS65) and wider for rare issues that appear only infrequently (an 1892-S Morgan in MS63). Garrett appreciates the current transparency of U.S. rare coin market pricing and refers to resources such as the Heritage Auctions archive, which includes over seven million records across all categories.

Still, pricing can remain an art, especially for coins that are infrequently traded or examples with exceptionally eye appeal. Certification levels also play a role, with CAC drawing significant attention in the last few years. And for unique or "finest known" items, only an auction can reveal the true value of a coin. Jeff notes a 1938-S MS68+ Mercury dime sold by Legend Auctions in 2019 for $364,250 "because two people went to mortal combat to buy it [based on] a pop report." As a result, the Guide Book sometimes simply publishes the last known auction price for especially rare items.

Garrett concluded by noting that the current environment supplies more information than ever to prospective collectors and believes that this will continue to fuel the overall numismatic market. The NBS recognized Garrett with a speaker's plaque in appreciation for this Symposium presentation.

To watch the complete video, see:
NBS Symposium (ANA 2025) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JspyXpxmIjs)
Numismatic Bibliomania Society Symposium 2025 ANA (https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/650557)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web