…not by what they buy, but by the dreams they realize.”
That quote by Sofia Martinez1 is the perfect lead-on to our latest installment of the Black Library Bibliophiles series, as today we’ll be talking about both coins and dreams. For those joining us for the first time, this is an occasional series that celebrates the passion and art of collecting and displaying our favorite Black Library treasures.
For many of us, the joy of these books extends far deeper than just the words on the page. From the beautiful treatments of Special and Limited Editions to the simple admiration of a well-arrayed shelf, you can find previous installments covering Grail-chasing and unusual collectibles.
Every library tells a story, and today we’re going to look at the story of the dream of the Emperor of Mankind.
From the Museum: The First Founding
Back in February 2023 as part of the Black Library Celebration, Games Workshop released “one of the most complete guides to the Space Marines and their history ever produced,2” an art and lore book all about the nine Loyalist Chapters and their history.
Then last year they re-released the book, this time as a Deluxe Edition. It was a celebration of the dream of the Emperor to unify humankind across the stars, an ambition which saw the need to create a new breed of warrior, a new type of man.
Here’s the First Founding shelf of my Black Library Museum:
Naturally, the First Founding Deluxe Edition provides most of the display, so we’ll start there with our tour of the shelf.
The Book
Even independently of all the other goodies you get, the book itself is a real centerpiece. with contributions from Black Library stalwarts John French (Ahriman: Exile, Dropsite Massacre), David Guymer (Angron: The Red Angel, Ferrus Manus: Gorgon of Medusa), Guy Haley (Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter, Archmagos), Nick Kyme (Knights of Macragge, Hand of Abaddon), and Callum Davis3 (The Stand of the Saber, Those Without Mercy).
Those of us who happen to favor the other side of the coin can only wish we’d get this level of treatment. Everything about the book is quality, starting with its size and heft. This is every bit a coffee table book.
Inside, there’s a full section on each of the nine Loyalist Chapters. Not just their history, but their martial organization, notable members, and more. Ever wondered how the Blood Angels wage war? Here you go.
Each section is punctuated with beautiful, full-color artwork.
Here’s the opener for the sons of Rogal Dorn, the Imperial Fists.
Now in fairness this is enough of an overview-level product that you can probably get as much from lore vids on YouTube, but as a concise and visually delightful overview, there’s no match.
The Prints
Each of the nine Chapters has their own full-color art print on sturdy cardstock. Alas I have more aspirations than square footage for display, so I keep mine in a stack and move the top print to the bottom every Sunday. Each Chapter has eight weeks in the dark, and one week to shine.
A kinetic slice of life of the Sons of Russ. Here they are deciding who gets to ride in the front seat in the traditional way.
Blood Angels in full majesty.
Look, I don’t want to be negative as it’s a nice piece, but why is it the Iron Hands always seem to get the short end of the stick? One of these things is not (quite) like the others…
And while I’m griping, I couldn’t find anywhere in the book or set where the artists for these prints were credited. Magic: the Gathering has done an amazing job of making sure to center its artists, letting both the talent and the brand enhance one another. For a property that owes so much to its early artists (q.v. Blanche et al), I think Games Workshop could well take a page from that playbook in the modern era.
The Box
The box itself is more than just a conveyance, with the inner foam core designed to help display the set of nine Chapter coins that accompany it. It’s a beautiful box, but I opted to let the coins breathe on their own and use the box as backdrop in the Museum.
The Coins
And now we get to the money… literally. These are the biggest reason for upgrading to the Deluxe Edition rather than just picking up the book itself (which was reissued in June of this year). Nine coins, each stamped with a Legion symbol on one side, and the helmet logo from the front of the box on the other.
Nine coins, in Legion order. Displayed like this they occupy a solid amount of real estate and look terrific. The coin cases are Fansunta acrylics, which run about nine bucks for a score of them on Amazon. They’re cheap and easy to use, but suffer from two drawbacks.
First, they’re not fitted to the coin sizes. Hardly their fault, but you can see the slight gaps in the nesting that light is shining through in the picture above. In fairness, that’s much more evident when they’re photographed in a light box than when they’re in the Museum display, but it occasionally bothers me and it might bother you.
Second, there’s a small spur of plastic where the mold was on one side of the coin holder. I use my hobby knife to scrape it away, but it’s not perfectly clean. Again, almost trivial but for the perfectionists out there (you know who you are), it’s a case of “see something, say something.”
As for the acrylic stands, those are by Reastar and run about seven dollars per 20 on Amazon. These are the smaller size, which have held up well for most of my displaying needs.
The Miniatures
In the vernacular of Magic: the Gathering, most of the miniatures and models I like to display in the Museum are ‘Legends,’ models of named characters and personalities from the Warhammer universe. For instance, I have the centerpiece model of Ushoran, Mortarch of Delusion standing sentinel next to the Limited Edition of the novel (by Dale Lucas) of the same name. My LE of Justin D. Hill’s Hell’s Last is paired with the Hell’s Last miniature set6.
In this case, it may be a bit of a letdown to learn these are personal choices. The Brutalis Dreadnaught was part of my Hachette Combat Patrol subscription, while the Ultramarine was the first (and unfortunately last) mini I have ever painted, a keepsake of a lesson offered at my friendly neighborhood Warhammer store.
No great stories this time, just decorations.
Coins of the Realm
The keen-eyed and quick-witted will already have discerned that not all of the coins on the Museum display have come from the First Founding Deluxe Edition. Indeed, there are four others that have been acquired independently. Coins like these make terrific additions to any collection as they’re nicely made, solid and sturdy, and visually attractive.
Best of all they’re relatively inexpensive and readily available, meaning even the starter Librarian will have easy access to them. Official Games Workshop stores offers a new coin each month, a free bonus for spending $100 or more in-store. Some coins hold their value a little better than others (this year’s Krieg coin, for example), but generally they tend to settle around the $15 mark on the secondary market7.
On the left is the Imperial Laurel coin, which was a recent promotional item given out in stores for August of this year. That same month Games Workshop held a global Warhammer store celebration, where the coin on the right could be obtained alongside an enamel pin. Here is the “heads” side of the Celebration coin (as well as the enamel pin):
During the same Celebration they had another commemorative bounty of a magentized, wooden dice tray. While nice, it wasn’t quite enough of an incentive to get me to spend the $300 it takes to get one since I’m more interested in chasing prizes for the Museum than the tabletop (more on that in a bit).
The coin on the right here is for Captain Uriel Ventris, and the in-store coin of the month for January 2021. On the left, though, is something a little different. While this, too, was an in-store giveaway, it wasn’t tied to the monthly release cycle as the other promotional coins. Rather, this one was given out as part of the July 2020 launch day celebrations for the release of Warhammer 40,000’s 9th Edition and the Indomitus starter box.
The coin features the Ultramarines logo on one side, with the Necron symbol in green on the reverse. That means once I get the Necron corner of the Museum sorted out I’ll be in the hunt for a second.
If you’re interested in adding some coins to your own library, I’ll have an indexed list of the in-store ones at the end of this article. It’s worth noting that Games Workshop isn’t the only one producing collectible coins for Warhammer, but we’ll be looking at those from Rewind Collectibles in a later installment of Black Library Bibliophiles.
Warhammer Day 2025
I mentioned earlier that Games Workshop held a special celebration this past Summer, commemorating the opening of 500 retail Games Workshop stores, including their 200th in North America and thirty years of a retail brick and mortar presence in Australia.
This coming Saturday (25 October) is the next such event, ringing in Warhammer Day across the world. Librarians looking to add a little commemorative flair to their book display will have a few attractive options depending on how deep you’re willing to dig into your pocket.
Spending a minimum of £50/€65/US$70 will net you a the two-sided art print pictured above, with a Space Marine or the Helsmiths of Hashut on display. If you go in for double that amount, then you’ll be able to grab the first of the two things I’m after, a silver-plated Warhammer Day 2025 coin.
With one side a Terminator and the other a Stormcast Eternal, I’ll probably be on the hunt for a second one of these as well. The silver is a nice touch and should look great in the display case.
Finally, the Pièce de résistance, the Space Marine replica ammo pouch.
Already kicking myself for letting the Astra Militarum canteen pass me by earlier this year, I don’t intend on letting this one go even if it means I have to sit outside the front of the store before it opens for a couple hours.
Reader Shelves: The Lords of Silence
It doesn’t matter how big or small your library is, creativity in display is something you can do at any stage of collecting. My earliest efforts at building something more than just a shelf of books was when I started building Warhammer minis and using them as decoration.4
I asked readers to show me how they’re highlighting the new The Lords of Silence edition in their collection, and here’s a couple that caught my eye!
I love the zaniness Zeke Mayor’s working with here, with a couple of the Little Lords for decoration. Above left we have Tomy’s Grenade Nurgling plush, then on the right is the Sassy Nurgling. using a copy of The Imperial Infantryman’s Handbook (Krieg edition) as a throne. When you see the affection the Death Guard have for those putrescent sacks of puckish maleficence in the story itself, these are surprisingly close to how you might imagine the Heretic Astartes view them.
Beyond that, though, my eye was also drawn to the hardcover of Ian Watson’s Chaos Child as well as The Gothic and the Eldritch, originally printed back in 2001 showcasing the art of Jes Goodwin.5
The composition of this image of James Chung’s shelf is sublime, the contrasts between light and dark naturally pulling the eye towards its centerpiece. This shelf has a lot of books from the recent catalogue of the Black Library, and I was particularly drawn to No Good Men, the first-ever Warhammer Crime anthology (2020) as well as the budding collection of Adepta Sororitas hardcovers. Very nice, James!
Cataloguing the Coins
Finally, here’s a list of the monthly in-store promotional coins released by Games Workshop over the past five years.
Store Events/Games Workshop
- Black Library (FEB 2024)
- Citadel Color (JUL 2022)
- Golden Demon (JAN 2025)
- Warhammer Day (OCT 2025)
- White Dwarf Issue #500 (MAY 2024)
Imperium
- Adepta Sororitas (JUN 2021)
- Adeptus Arbites (FEB 2023)
- Astra Militarum (FEB 2025)
- Black Templars (OCT 2021)
- Cadia Stands (JAN 2023)
- Crux Terminatus (OCT 2023)
- Dark Angels (MAR 2024)
- Death Korps of Krieg (APR 2025)
- Grey Knights (AUG 2021)
- High Lord of Terra (NOV 2022)
- Imperial Aquila (DEC 2021)
- Imperial Coin (AUG 2022)
- Imperial Laurel (AUG 2025)
- Marksman’s Honour (SEP 2024)
- Space Marine Terminators (JUL 2023)
- Ultramarines (JAN 2021)
Chaos
- Chaos Space Marines (MAY 2022)
- Death Guard (DEC 2020)
- Emperor’s Children (MAY 2025)
- Eye of Horus (JUL 2025)
- World Eaters (MAR 2023)
Xenos
- Aeldari Aspect (MAR 2025)
- Da Red Gobbo (NOV 2024, NOV 2023, NOV 2021)
- Goff Rocker (DEC 2022)
- Kroot (APR 2024)
- Leagues of Votann (SEP 2022)
- Orks (SEP 2021)
- Tau (JAN 2022)
- Tyranids (JUN 2023, APR 2022)
Age of Sigmar/Fantasy
- Be’Lakor (APR 2021)
- Cities of Sigmar (SEP 2023)
- Daughters of Khaine (NOV 2020)
- Flesh-Eater Courts (JAN 2024)
- Ghal Maraz (MAY 2021)
- Gotrek Gurnisson (MAR 2025)
- Hedonites of Slaanesh (FEB 2021)
- Lumineth Realm-Lords (MAR 2021)
- Mortal Realms: Aqshy (JUL 2024)
- Mortal Realms: Azyr (JUL 2024)
- Mortal Realms: Ghur (AUG 2023)
- Mortal Realms: Hysh (SEP 2025)
- The Old World (JAN 2024)
- Orruk Warclans (FEB 2022)
- Seraphon (APR 2023, DEC 2022)
- Skaven (AUG 2024)
- Slaves to Darkness (JUN 2024, MAR 2023)
- Soulblight Gravelords Barrow Guard (JUN 2025)
- Stormcast Eternals (JUL 2021)
Other Games
- Cursed City (OCT 2022)
- Kill Team: Gallowdark (MAY 2023)
- Kill Team: Hivestorm (OCT 2024)
- Legions Imperialis (DEC 2023)
- Necromunda: Ash Wastes (MAR 2022)
- Underworlds (DEC 2024)
Footnotes
- I have no idea who that is. The internet doesn’t appear to, either. An unsourced quote of unknown provenance beyond a name, even ChatGPT came up empty (and if I’m turning to the slop-servitors then you know I’m throwing a Hail Mary!) Still, it’s a great quote I couldn’t resist using.
- Quoted from WARCOM here.
- There’s an element of ‘not all heroes wear capes’ at play here. On first blush Davis seems like an odd-man-out on this lineup, given he’s only penned a handful of short stories in the past few years. That statline clearly belies his contribution, however, as his seven-year career as a Games Workshop employee was largely spent as a background writer contributing to Warhammer 40,000 codexes and supplements as well as White Dwarf articles. While he left Games Workshop in 2022, he’s continued to write fiction for the Black Library, and currently is head of lore at Plarium Games for Raid: Shadow Legends.
- Not actually playing the games (yet) really helped here, since the miniatures weren’t fighting for purpose.
- Those newer to the world of Warhammer might not immediately place the name, and that’s okay! We all start somewhere, right? Goodwin is one of early Warhammer’s towering artistic talents, serving as both an illustrator as well as model sculptor. SpikeyBits ran a retrospective of some of his best-known work back in 2023, well worth checking out as Goodwin’s contributions to the world we love will be relevant for as long as Warhammer persists.
- Apparently out of print. They’re not even listed on the Warhammer site anymore, not even “out of stock.” Just…gone.
- The entrepreneurially-minded will immediately recognize that this represents almost a sort of discount coupon on Warhammer goods. If you spend $100 and then sell the coin for $15, you’re only out of pocket for $85.
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