2 comments about Coins & Currency Of The Middle East: A Descriptive Guide to Pocket Collectibles.

1. After reading the first review of this book I became so intrigued by it that I had to buy one for myself just to see. Alas, this thing is every bit as bad as stated earlier. I wouldn't recommend it to anybody except the following people: Collectors of numismatic books who have to have everything. Actually, the thing does have some redeeming qualities, basically the excellent reproductions of the various coins, notes, and trade tokens it lists, and in fact the quality of the printing itself. It also is a rich source of material that one might not have had pictures of, and definitely does expose one to a wide variety of coins, currency and tokens (US Military issue POGS) from the Middle East and tacky touristy paraphernalia manufactured for US military personnel. Having said this, the book does suffer from some very serious flaws and some irritating ones. The serious ones make it otherwise useless as a reference book, the irritating ones make one feel manipulated. The technical problems have to do with hard data: The book lacks any. There simply is no information about mintage sizes of any of the issues listed. Furthermore, the book suffers from a lack of comprehensiveness. It lists a broad panoply of coins, currency, tokens (POGS) and ephemera from various nations sprinkled across the globe yet it doesn't address any of them in any depth nor does there seem to be any logical reason or system to rationalize all of the material. One gets the impression that a bunch of stuff from a few disparate collections was thrown together and made into a book; stuff that was gathered in a random way from random countries in the Middle East and then catalogued without rhyme nor reason. The nauseating stuff is the way the book is stuffed with propaganda pictures of US Military personnel portrayed in various contexts all of which make them out to be salving angels come amongst the benighted for their maximum benefit and enlightenment. It's pretty schmaltzy and has no connection to numismatics. Frankly, when I buy a coin reference book I do not want something that is mostly full color photographs of little Arab kids begging for candy from GI's. I know it sounds peevish but I want a book about collectibles to be filled with stuff about collectibles.



2. Well, this is hard. I hate to downgrade this work, but I do it on two accounts, and I'm sure people will kick me for it.
   
   One had best re-read that book title v-e-r-y carefully and digest the meaning before purchasing.
   
   It is NOT: Coins & Currency Of The Middle East
   
   It IS: A Descriptive Guide to Pocket Collectibles
   
   This is a guide to a multitude of fairly common "collectibles" related to the Middle East fiasco - Desert Storm, Desert Shield, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Restore Hope, Operation Re-election, Operation $4 Gas, etc. - that we've been embroiled in for the last 25 years. And "25 years" is a key phrase. You see, none of the coins or currency in this book goes back farther than 25 years (approximately) so it's absolutely NOT a modern "coin & currency" book.... It's a collectible guide, for cardboard pogs, old magazines, and oddball souvenirs - just the typical stuff that bored GIs buy at the PX and fob off on their relatives after having been stationed in the desert for 6 months, playing basketball and watching war movies.
   
   For indeed, this is the stuff of modern warfare - 3 hot meals, suntan lotions, and CNN images of bombs going off somewhere else. Remote control.
   
   Nevertheless, this is a collectibles book - the type of stuff aunt Martha will pull out of the closet and drawl, "Dang, lookit this Day-sart Storm caw-fee mug. That's got to worth a passel!".
   
   Well, sorry, but the PX imported millions of them from China, just so young Joey could take it back home after the festivities were over, along with his "Stay Back 100 Meters or You Will Be Shot" beach towel , and the "Who's Your Baghdaddy?" t-shirt, available in Small or XXL only. Go figure.
   
   But I digress. I was looking for, and it's my fault, a book on Middle Eastern coins and Currency. Now, most of the nations there have fairly limited issuances anyway. Qatar and UAE, for example, have a very few issues, dating to as early as the early 1960's, some of which is quite valuable. Now would it have been a strain to reduce some of the fluff and fill out the coins and currency section a bit? Nope - the authors felt it very important to detail AAFEES' (Army & Air Force Exchange Service, i.e. the company store in the war zone) pogs, which are cardboard tokens, again issued in the millions so that AAFEES can: (1) make change on their inflated prices, and (2) put cute pictures so every GI Schmoe will keep the pretty paper and invest their pocket change for a souvenir.
   
   No on really knows how much AAFEES makes from never having pogs redeemed but it must be millions by now. In fact, even from a collecting standpoint, only the first issue was at all "limited edition", and these are quite rare. Subsequent issues are valued, even in this magnificent, at original issue price. So, I go to war, get a 25 cent pog, take it home and save it for 5 years and it's worth... 25 cents. IF I can find a buyer. Hmmmmm.
   
   OK, so what is this book about? Kitschy treasure trash that most GIs throw or give away. Is it about anything cultural or numismatic to the Middle East? Nope, nothing - it's virtually devoid of anything that might approach collectible status, excepting the person who would buy 27 piece hunting knife collections on late-night TV that "you can sell to your friends and make a profit!"
   
   I'm disappointed with Krause Publications, the premier publisher of numismatic, and to some degree, collectibles books. I have every reason to believe this was someone's idea of a good book to publish, but much like the Seinfeld Show, it's really a book about nothing.
   
   Be sure of your needs. Within 2 minutes of receiving this book, after flipping through it, hoping beyond hope of the first 10 seconds of discovery, I resolved to give it away.

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