Las Vegas collector Rob Turner, who has been collecting and studying Canada’s Victorian cents for 40 years, is the author of a new book entitled Past & Nearly Perfect.
The 174-page hardcover book explores the pattern, trial, proof and specimen large cents coined by the Royal Mint (Heaton) and the Ottawa Mint from 1857-1920.
“Some of these fascinating coins serve as a step-by-step guide of how the adopted designs evolved. Others were coined as presentation pieces for dignitaries, collectors, and museums. Collectively, they represent the finest, and some of the rarest, Canadian large cents known to exist,” according to a statement issued by the author, who’s a Fellow of the Canadian Numismatic Research Society and began collecting Canadian decimal coinage as a teenager in Maine during the 1960s.
With full-colour photos and population estimates for each type of special-strike cent, the book is Turner’s fifth since 2007.
He donated the book to the Royal Canadian Numismatic Association (RCNA) and will receive no compensation from its sale. All proceeds will go towards the RCNA, which received financial assistance for printing the book from the J. Douglas Ferguson Historical Research Foundation.
To order a copy, visit rcna.ca/book/index.php.
For more information about Turner and his research, visit his website at victoriancent.com.