Hi All
I am a near newbie here. I have bought my first lot of silver in the form of Perth Mint Certs. I want to get some physical. What I am looking for is a handbook of modern coin specifications that I could use in conjunction with my scales and calipers to start collecting. I found some lists online but these don't print too well in a small size. A small pocket book with sizes and info like gold content and weights would fit the bill. I tried amazon. There are a lot there. Is there a sort of "industry standard" book for this?

Unfortunately not, just a lot of books that each cover just a few silver coins but you really do not need one, you just need a pocket size scale and a small metal ruler. For modern silver coins they all weigh 31.1grams plus or minus a little bit, so 1 troy ounce. A Britannia is just over 40mm in diameter by 3mm deep, so are Eagles, Libertads and Kookaburras. Canadian Maples are smaller at 38mm in diameter but just over 3mm deep and Austrian Philharmonicas are 37mm in diameter and nearly 3.25mm deep, keep clear of Pandas as there really are a lot of good fakes around.

If you are interested in older coins then you are not really interested in investing in just physical but coin collecting as well and you would need a book for each countries coins try Collectors Coins GB 2008 by Chris Henry Perkins which gives you diameter and weight for UK coins but strangely not the depth.

Once you have brought and handled a few of each you will soon forget about the scale and ruler and just know when it is a real coin or a fake. There are also a lot of bar and custom silver rounds about, just stick to the main refineries such as Sunshine Mining, U.S. Assay, A-Mark, Silvertowne, Engelhard, APMEX & Johnson Matthey as the other ‘brands’ do not resell as well.

Thanks id5
I am just starting my physical collection. I will use my scales and calipers for a start. I have little interest in numismatic coins so if I base my value on pure metal I figure I should be ok. My only fear is getting stung with a fake.
Thanks muchly for your reply.
Silverfish

One little trick I forgot to mention, balance the coin on the end of your finger and make it ring with a pencil by tapping it, if it goes doof then its more than likely to be a lead fake and plated with silver, it should go ping!

Yep id, Got my first Krug today. Weighs and measures ok. It has that nice ping too that lead cannot make....very reassuring!
Thanks again