Charlton Press
The Charlton Press is a book publishing company that produces pricing guides as well as other books on related topics, including collectibles and porcelain figures. The company's first title was Catalogue of Canadian Coins, Tokens & Fractional Currency, published in 1952, and contained all coins used as circulating tender in Canada from 1858 until present.
Origins of the Charlton Press
It was James Charlton's experience as an avid numismatist that inspired him to create a catalogue for coin collectors. In 1926, when Jim Charlton was 15, his older brother Harry Charlton gifted him a United States 1863 Indian Head cent.It was from this initial exposure to coins that Jim Charlton developed an interest in numismatics, frequently visiting coin dealers, and purchasing coins from second-hand stores in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Charlton continued to cultivate his interest in coins while moving to Northern Ontario for work as an engineer from 1933 to 1948. However, it was his return to Toronto in April 1948 after accepting a position as a steam engineer for the Star that allowed him to expand his collection. By actively acquiring withdrawn circulation coinage from bank acquisitions, coin auctions, and inventories from coin shops, Charlton's collection grew exponentially.
While continuing his work as chief steam engineer at The Star, Charlton ran Canada Coin Exchange, a coin business from his home on a part-time basis during evenings and Saturdays with his wife Mary from 1948 until 1956.
Canada Coin Exchange: The early years (1952–1959)
Charlton had been actively buying and selling coins since 1948 and conducting a number of mail auction sales beginning in 1950. It was during this time that he realized the need for a Canadian catalogue which would provide accurate values of coins. Based on his experience as an auctioneer, he realized that the only catalogue on Canadian coins, one published by Wayte Raymond, was outdated. While Raymond's publication listed coinage by dates, mint marks, mintages and values, and was an improvement from its earlier 1937 publication, listed coin values did not correspond to the values received at bid during auction. It was the selling prices of those sales in which Charlton auctioneered that helped to establish the baseline values for the first catalogue.In 1952, Jim Charlton with the assistance of Fred Bowman and other numismatic students, released the company's first title, the Catalogue of Canadian Coins, Tokens & Fractional Currency, 1st edition. A publication at 34 pages, the catalogue filled a void for Canadian coin collectors and featured then current values and listings of Canadian coins. The original catalogue and all catalogues until 1959, were saddle-stitched with various coloured paper covers. Folded sheets were correlated and then stapled through the folded cover crease from the outside. With the exception of 1954, the catalogue was updated yearly until 1959 when the catalogue underwent a major revision.
The growing popularity of numismatics in Canada in the 1950s necessitated Jim Charlton's expansion of his home-based business into a separate retail location. He opened Canada Coin Exchange at 53 Front Street, Toronto, Ontario, on August 2, 1956. A few months after opening Front Street, Charlton, his wife, and two employees suffered a botched armed robbery at gunpoint by two Toronto men. Due to safety concerns, Charlton then relocated Canada Coin Exchange and consolidated the store, office, and warehouse into one location. His new shop at 80 Richmond Street, Toronto, Ontario, was opened on October 31, 1958, and his operations remained there until August 1965.
The Whitman years (1960–1969)
In 1959, the coin catalogue underwent a major revision not only in terms of its content, but also with regards to the logistics of publication and distribution.Yeoman and Bressett
Before the printing of the catalogue's 8th edition, Charlton had been contacted by Richard S. Yeoman with a proposal for a new expanded edition to the Catalogue of Canadian Coins, Tokens & Fractional Currency. Having the facilities, experience and market potential that Jim Charlton lacked, Yeoman and Bressett became responsible for the printing, sales, and distribution of the catalogues through Whitman's Coin Products Division for the next ten years until the 19th edition. During the "Whitman Years", the catalogue was modified to a blue hardcover case bound publication, where individual segments were sewn together, before the spine was flattened, and the hard cover attached. The blue cloth-bound soil-resistant hard cover was continued until 1969.Having Richard Yeoman handle the Charlton catalogue was a fortuitous pairing for the Canadian coin catalogue. Yeoman was an integral part of Whitman Publishing. He had helped to cultivate an extensive sales network for coin related material. His experience in compiling definitive coin price guides was invaluable in increasing sales and interest in Canadian numismatics.
In addition to pairing with Whitman, modifications were also made to the content of the 1960 catalogue. The catalogue itself underwent a formatting modification, with the incorporation of more individual and larger illustrations of coins and tokens, additional information on coins and bills themselves, reassembling of data, mint statistics and prices on one page, the inclusion of grading standards, the inclusion of die varieties never previously catalogued, and an increase in pages to 128 from its previously 34. The length of the catalogue was limited to no more than 128 pages given the limitations of printing technology. At the time, a press could only handle a sheet that contained the equivalent of 128 smaller sheets.
The inclusion of government paper money
For the first time, Jim Charlton also included government paper money issues of Canada and Newfoundland in its catalogue listings. This resulted in renaming the catalogue from the Catalogue of Canadian Coins, Tokens & Fractional Currency to the Standard Catalogue of Canadian Coins, Token & Paper Money.But the inclusion of paper money in the catalogue was not without its difficulties. Jim Charlton had long desired for his catalogue to reflect the growing interest in paper bills. When he explored the possibility in 1954, he encountered obstacles given that he had not received permission to publish such a catalogue with illustrations of paper money from the Bank of Canada and the Department of Finance. Doing so would contravene the Criminal Code.
At the same time that Charlton was exploring the possibility of incorporating bank note illustrations, James Elliott Jr. was independently working on a paper money catalogue. But, unlike Elliott who published his catalogue without illustrations, Charlton took a risk and published a modest catalogue on Canadian and Newfoundland government paper money with a 1955 issue date using reduced size note face illustrations. Charlton was hopeful that no action would be taken against him by the Government of Canada. Years prior in 1947, the Department of Finance had not instigated legal proceedings against W.H. Kernohan of Forest, Ontario who had released educational material in the form of a chart featuring banknote illustrations. As Jim Charlton stated about Kernohan, "So, I figured to myself, 'if he can do that, I think I've got a good case if they decide to come after me.'"
Nonetheless, fearing seizure of the printed matter, Charlton kept the majority of the publications in the basement of his brother's residence in Mississauga, Ontario. Luckily, no such seizure occurred and in fact, the Central Bank ordered a copy of the catalogue. It was soon thereafter that Elliott released a second catalogue with full illustrations of paper bills, using fronts and backs.
The new format and content was well received in a book review printed in The Numismatist's December 1959 issue. Hailed as a "milestone in Canadian numismatics," Charlton's catalogue was recommended for "the shelf of any collector interested in Canadian numismatics, or wishing to appreciate the place of these important series in the world picture."
Coin guide
In 1961, Canada Coin Exchange published The Charlton Coin Guide, the definitive guidebook on determining the worth and value of a coin. For those interested in coin accumulation evaluation, the Coin Guide contained not only buying prices for coins of Canada and Newfoundland, but also for Canadian Paper Money from 1935 Bank of Canada issues up to present times, Canadian colonial tokens, war medals and decorations, United States coinage and common gold coins of the world. In addition to legal tender coinage, the Coin Guide also provided information on all Royal Canadian Mint issues. The guide was created in response to a common problem of collectors experiencing difficulty discovering the value of their coins held.Today, the Coin Guide is Canada's oldest continuously published buying guide and serves as a concise reference on the buying prices dealers will pay for coins. The Coin Guide is currently in its 54th edition.
Charlton and Whitman part ways
Charlton and Whitman eventually parted ways in 1970 after their decade-long pairing due to a disagreement over the pricing structure listed in the Canadian catalogue. Between 1965 and 1967, the coin business hit a recession in Canada. Proof like sets had peaked and new issues were flooding the market, saturating it. As a consequence, there was a significant price decrease in the market for coins and more dealers were turning to precious metals. Jim Charlton felt that reflecting this downturn in his catalogue was not warranted, whereas Whitman was adamant that values listed in the Canadian catalogue should account for the market's price decrease. Unable to reach a compromise, Jim Charlton once again resumed full publishing of Canadian Coins, Tokens and Paper Money.With the demands of the coin business taking his free time from his wife Mary and son Jimmy, Jim Charlton left The Star after 13 years of employment in 1961. He continued his relationship with the newspaper in a capacity unrelated to his employed profession, that is, writing the Coins column for The Star until 1968.