Whitman Publishing


Whitman Publishing is a book and game publisher that primarily produces coin and stamp collecting books and materials.
The company is owned by Anderson Press.
From the early 1900s to the late 1980s, Whitman was a popular children's book publisher. For decades it was a subsidiary of Western Publishing Company. Its genres included westerns, mysteries, science fiction, adventure stories, and various others. Whitman also published Whitman Authorized Editions with stories featuring fictionalized versions of popular actresses of the 1940s, and later similar books based upon popular television shows, such as The Munsters. Hawaii Five-O, The Roy Rogers Show, Lassie, and book adaptations of many Walt Disney films. One of its most popular mystery series was Trixie Belden. They also published illustrated card games including War, Hearts, Fish, Old Maid, and Crazy Eights.

History

In 1938, Whitman began publishing coin boards, used by coin collectors to store their collections.
In 1942, the company published its first price guide, The Official Blue Book of U.S. Coins, and in 1946 it introduced A Guide Book of United States Coins.
This started an expanding line of books aimed at numismatists. The line continued as Western was sold to Mattel in 1982, then was spun off and renamed Golden Books Family Entertainment. The new company sold Whitman Coin Products and other adult lines to St. Martin's Press. St. Martin's, in turn, sold Whitman Coin Products to the H.E. Harris company, another publisher that specialized in coin and postage stamp collecting materials. H.E. Harris was then renamed Whitman Publishing, which continues to produce primarily coin and postage stamp collecting books materials.
Today Whitman Publishing is owned by Anderson Press. As of 2017, Whitman was also publishing books on other topics in addition to the coin and postage stamp collecting materials and books.

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