While attending the Bibliomania Society meeting at the F.U.N. show, I sat with Ken Bressett, the editor of A Guide Book of United States Coins (the "Red Book"), and talked briefly about the past, present, and future of our hobby’s most popular book. Following is a brief recap of our conversation.

Our conversation began with me asking Mr. Bressett if he was aware of a minor omission in the Red Book that I had come across. It turned out that he wasn’t, and was happy to have it brought to his attention. (I’ll fill everyone in on the omission at the February meeting!) From there...

DP. I’m a collector of the U.S. coinage for the Philippines, and was wondering if you had any plans to increase the size of the Red Book’s coverage for the series? I know David Lange of NGC has been pushing for more coverage for several years.

KB. Yes, Dave and I talk frequently about the Philippine series and its future in the Red Book. I was actually responsible for bringing the current coverage of the Philippine series to the Red Book, and had to overcome a fair amount of resistance to get what we have. Expansion of the section in the near future is not likely, however, as the series is not that widely collected, and there are several other topics that collectors are pushing to get included in the book.

DP. What other types of things are collectors looking for?

KB. There has been a lot of interest in adding the American Arts Medallions. Many collectors point to the series as the Mint’s first true bullion offerings, and feel they should be included in the section covering our silver, gold, and now platinum, bullion coins. They’ll probably be included in one of the next expansions of the Red Book.

(Note: The American Arts Medallions program consisted of five one ounce and five half-ounce gold medals that featured prominent American artists. They were available in the early 1980’s.)

DP. What’s the process for deciding when to expand the Red Book, and what to include in the expansion?

KB. The book is basically expanded on an "as needed" basis. In other words, when the listings for coins that we must include (for example, each year’s new issues) grows to the point where we absolutely run out of pages in the current version, we make the decision to go ahead and add new pages. When we do expand, however, we have to add pages in blocks of sixteen pages at a time. Thus, each expansion offers us a chance to include several new topics and/or expand current ones.

DP. One of the newly expanded areas of the book is the section devoted to hard times tokens. It went from a half-page mention with one or two photographs to multi-page coverage with photographs of more than a dozen tokens.

KB. Yes. That section benefited from one of the 16-page additions I just mentioned. It was originally going to be featured for just one year, however. We were considering rotating through several specialty series over the course of four or five years, with each one taking a few pages every fourth or fifth year. The hard times section has proven quite popular, however, and may remain a regular feature. The rotating series idea is still be considered though.

DP. I’m currently researching the Mint’s national commemorative medal series. Any chance of the Red Book covering such a series?

KB. We haven’t considered them in the past, but that doesn’t rule them out in the future.

And with that, we each went our own F.U.N. way. I have a feeling, however, that Ken Bressett and the Red Book staff haven’t heard the last of Dave Provost or national commemorative medals.

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