I say coins, definitely. Most of the information is on, or being put on the internet anyway. Books are great and all and a pleasure to look at, but you want the coins- you know you do!!!
Molinari
In the areas that I collect very little is on the Internet. I have found that the Internet is a
good starting point, but it rarely has the
complete or accurate information that I need. For example, I was trying identify a Cilician
Armenian coin. The best I could do on the Internet was a pogh of Gosdantin III. Once I got Bedoukian's book on these coins, I soon realized that it was a coin of Oshin. Additionally, it confirmed that another coin I have was a Takvorin of Levon the Usurper (a fairly
rare coin.)
If you collect Greek bronze coins, you better get copies of Lindgren's books, since a lot of these coins are not on the Internet.
Even using the Internet, the resources may be hard to use. Have you tried using the online
Svoronos to identify
Ptolemaic coins? I have tried. Finally, I
had to print it out, since looking at the printed pages is much better then trying to go through the images online. Have you tried to use the
ANS database to identify coins? With no images in this database, it is very difficult to know if the coin described is the same as the one you have.
No, most of the information is not on the Internet. Even if it is on the Internet, I have found it much harder to use then flipping through the plates in a book.
Get the book! You'll be a lot happier in the long run.