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KM AND PICK CATALOGS ACQUIRED BY CCGThat headline is an alphabet soup of abbreviations, but the first paragraph explains. Thanks to Kavan Ratnatunga for passing this news along. -Editor
NGC and PMG Acquire the KM and Pick Catalogs of World Coins and Banknotes
"The KM and Pick catalogs are two of the most famous and widely used reference systems in numismatics, and they have found a great home with NGC and PMG," said Max Spiegel, president of the Certified Collectibles Group. "As the global leaders in world coin and banknote grading, we look forward to investing in these databases to make them even more comprehensive, accurate, and accessible to collectors and dealers worldwide." Catalog systems are enormously helpful to collectors and dealers because they facilitate identification, research and valuation of collectibles. The KM and Pick catalogs aim to assign a reference number to every collectible in existence and provide associated images, specifications data such as mintage and design details, and valuation information by grade. 
The KM numbering system is named for Chester Krause and Clifford Mishler, who developed and maintained it with meticulous attention to detail in order to create the Standard Catalog of World Coins. The inaugural book was published in 1972 and eventually split into several volumes (each covering a century). 
The Pick numbering system is named for numismatist Albert Pick, whose research led to the publication of the first edition of the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money in 1975. NGC makes the KM catalog available for free to collectors and dealers through its World Coin Price Guide at NGCcoin.com. PMG includes the Pick numbers for world banknotes on its certification labels and utilizes this same numbering system in its PMG Population Report and PMG Registry. PMG also makes the Pick catalog available for free through its World Paper Money Price Guide at PMGnotes.com. I added book cover images for illustration, but the article says nothing about publishing new editions of the two works. This seems to be just about the two numbering systems for coins and paper money, giving NGC and PMG the right to use the systems in its holders and databases. NGC and PMG already announced a licensing agreement for the two numbering systems in 2021. The latest deal is a purchase. The earlier articles linked below summarize the history of the books, which went from Krause Publications to Random House and AIM Media. The printed book titles were split off to Random House and have never been heard from again. Kavan notes that "the age of huge catalogs is gone; I can't see them returning except to your phone with a yearly subscription." I'm not an active collector and don't subscribe to AIM's NumisMaster service. I understand updates are rolled out monthly, but I can't see their "What's New in NumisMaster" reports. -Editor
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To read the earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: Subscribe All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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