Customer Rating: 
Summary: Much better than the expanded editions
Comment: This is way more affordable and sufficient for the average coin collector who is interested in circulated coins of the world. Unless you want information on the modern commemoratives, this is the book for you.
I just wish they made one like it for the 19th century as well.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Decent Starter Before Real Food
Comment: If your coin collecting started from a handful of change brought back from some exotic place by an uncle and has moved only a little ahead ever since, this is your book. This catalogue includes only "real" coins i.e. those which were available at face value not at issue price when issued and which were or still are used in actual transactions. It is neatly divided by countries and the coins are arranged according to their denominations, most of coins are represented in black and white photographs.
However, you should bear in mind that current circulating coins (and conseqently this catalogue) are just a part of a vast numismatic empire. Collecting is just like eating - you may be happy with the starters and live on salads and pasta for ever but at some point you may want to move ahead to more serious dishes - in this case commemorative coins and issues before 1901.
This is a perfect book for a coin collecting beginner but if you consider yourself a serious coin collector you should avoid starters and move on the real stuff. Krause will be more than happy to help you!
Customer Rating:
Summary: For the Serious Collector
Comment: This book, like the Standard Catalog of World coins (1901-present) also by Krause et al, contains all you need to identify and price nearly every coin from every nation minted since 1901. The book begins with an identification guide containing images of common themes on each nation's coins (for example, the eagle on Egypt's coins), a chart/list of the various number systems (so you can read the denominations and dates on Arabic, Chinese/Japanese/Korean, Hebrew, and Thai coins, just to name a few), and a Hejira-Christian date chart (important for dating Arabic coins).The main section of the book is organized first by country, then by era/dynasty, next by denomination (lowest to highest), and last by style (with KM number). Within each style are a list of dates, mintages, and prices at various conditions.
The main differences between this book and Standard Catalog of World Coins appear to be: (1) this book is half the thickness and half the weight, (2) this book is printed on higher-quality paper, and (3) this book doesn't contain as many coins that never went into circulation (commemoratives, etc.). So one might say that this book is aimed toward the collector, while the Standard Catalog is geared more toward the dealer.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Covers 330 coin-issuing countries and states
Comment: Chester Krause, et.al.'s Collecting World Coins widens the focus to world coins from 1901 to the present, appearing in its updated 9th edition to cover 330 coin-issuing countries and states. Over 20,000 coins are listed by date and valued in up to four grade levels. The black and white coin photos here are even more extensive and essential for identification.
Customer Rating:
Summary: excellent reference to 20th century world coins
Comment: Adequate-resolution black-and-white photographs of the vast majority (if not all) of the 20th century world circulation business-strike coinage. Especially historically accurate. For example Germany is divided into the coinage of various coin-minting units of government over its tumultuous and shattered 20th-century history: Anhalt-Dessau, Baden, Bavaria, Bremen, Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, Hamburg, Hesse-Darmstadt, Lippe-Detmold, Lubeck, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Oldenburg, Prussia, Reuss-Obergreiz, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenbach, Saxony, Schaumburg-Lippe, Waldeck-Pyrmont, Wurttemberg, German Empire (1871-1918), Weimar Republic (1919-1933), Third Reich (1933-1945), Federal Republic of Germany (West & unified) (1945-present), Saarland (1945-1957), and German Democratic Republic (East)(1945-1990). I consider that nation-state categorization alone impressive and intimate knowledge of coinage production in Germany, let alone the over-300 coin types documented among all of those coin-producing governments. Similar detail is taken with a multitude of other countries worldwide, with whose history I am less familiar.
Number of coins produced each year are given as are prices for typically 3 grades: very fine, extremely fine, and uncirculated.
The only way that Kraus could "improve" this book is to release a 19th century edition, an 18th century edition, a 17th century edition, and so forth, because it is disappointing to have the history truncated at 1901. Although I am not aware of such per-century editions slicing horizontally across the world, Krause has produced vertical slices by country, such as the history of German coins spanning multiple centuries, which of course overlaps in the 20th century with this book.
