Numismatics is the study of coins, paper money, tokens and other item used as currency. It’s an exciting area of study, especially over the last couple of decades. For many years, Canadian numismatics were limited in their resources. Many larger cities had coin clubs, but they could not be found in smaller communities. Today’s numismatics would be shocked to know that price guides were rarely published and those that were contained very little information.
The collector world saw an increase in the number of people collecting coins and paper bank notes after WWII. We have a constant increase in the number of people collecting coins in the decades since. 1950 was an exciting time with the forming of the Canadian Numismatic Association and the publishing of the “Standard Catalogue of Canadian Coins” by J.E. Charlton just two years later.
The following decades saw the formation of hundreds of coin clubs sprouting up throughout Canada. With groups forming in all major Canadian cities, collectors had a community to share information. These clubs helped create a need for the numerous price guides, periodicals, and catalogues solely devoted to Canadian coin collectors.