Leisure and Hobbies

The growth of the Internet has affected how you find a lot of things. But finding coins can still be very much an old-fashioned practice. Novice collectors are often surprised by how many valuable coins are still in loose circulation.

There are hundreds of websites now in existence devoted to coin collecting and trading. But there are still several hardcopy publications that the novice collector will find extremely useful.

Separating out frauds or fakes from genuine (even error) coins requires experience and ongoing research.

The overwhelming majority of coin collectors and dealers are honest. That eBay and other Internet sites are successful is one big piece of evidence to that effect. Trust keeps the whole system going, since there’s a delay between the purchase and delivery.

There are a host of factors that influence the market value of a collectible coin. Some of those are inherent to the coin like condition, age, number minted and errors. Other factors are purely market forces, which can be changed by mass psychology, non-coin related economic factors and dozens other causes.

Part art, part science, part history lesson… but all adventure! That’s coin collecting.

Historians largely agree that the first coins were struck during the 7th century in Asia Minor, in an area that is now part of Turkey. ‘Struck’ is an appropriate term, since they were made by putting a blank metal piece between two die and striking the top with a hammer.

Many novice collectors begin by inheriting a small set of coins from a relative. The first question asked is invariably ‘How much are these worth?’ The first step in answering that question is to grade the coins.

There is a kind of Hippocratic Oath used implicitly among coin collectors: First, above all, do no harm.

Grading coins is both science and art. You may want to acquire this skill not for the purpose of becoming an expert, but simply to better deal with other collectors and dealers. Knowledge is power, if only the power of self-defense.

Though debates rage about whether and how to clean your coins, most serious collectors agree on some basic guidelines.

Before a collectible coin can be assigned a price, a dealer or collector will examine it closely. The first result will always be placing it into one of the obvious categories of denomination or type.

There are a host of factors that determine the market value of a collectible coin.

A proof is a coin made as a prototype to test a design. They are made in limited quantities and so, sometimes much later, become highly valuable.