want a book that lists and describes all U.S. coins by date and mint, preferably with pricing information for a variety of grades. With this information, you can decide which coins interest you, and you can set collecting goals that are achievable and within your budget. A great resource for this is A Guide Book of United States Coins (a.k.a. “The Red Book”) by R. S. Yeoman, Jeff Garrett, et al (Whitman Publishing).
Price guides
Price guides contain listings of coins along with their values at different levels of condition. Different types of price guides address different areas of the market:
Wholesale price guides: These guides satisfy the needs of dealers who buy and sell from one another and know what they’re buying.
Retail price guides: These guides help dealers and collectors assign selling prices to their coins.
Certified price guides: These guides record the buy-and-sell spreads for coins that have been graded and certified by two independent grading services.
You can subscribe to numismatic price guides or often also included in trade papers such as Coin World and Numismatic News (refer to “Trade papers” earlier in this chapter). I discuss price guides in much greater detail in Chapter 16.
Grading guides
Understanding how coins are graded may be the most important aspect of numismatics, so I discuss this in detail in Chapter 16 and Chapter 17.
Whicheve of the recognized grading services you choose, it is important for you understand the scale and its application.
Are you obligated to tell someone when they’ve underpriced or undergraded a coin or missed a valuable variety? The answer is no — sort of. If someone presents to the public as a professional coin dealer, they’re presumed to know better and are obligated to informed the customer. If a pro offers to sell you a coin at an incorrectly low price, good for you. If some other collector or novice asks for your opinion about a variety, grade, or value, you must be honest in your response (if you choose to answer) but you can’t call yourself a pro or expert. With numismatic expertise, a pro is expected to charge a a fee or work out a fair deal to handle the sale of the coin. In any case,always tell the truth. You’ll develop a wonderful reputation as an honest numismatist, and you’ll be able to sleep soundly at night.
Mix and mingle
The best thing you can do as a beginning collector is hook up with someone who is already involved in numismatics as a dealer or collector. A good adviser can demonstrate to you the fine points of coin collecting and show you coins that you might not otherwise see. Many old-time collectors have plenty of great stories about the coins they’ve owned, the coins they regret not buying, the wonderful people they’ve met along the way, and their experiences at coin shows and in coin shops. What most old-time collectors don’t have is someone who’s willing to sit down and listen to them, so your desire to find out more may be rewarded by some eager mentoring.
Facebook groups: There are too many to count, so start here.
Coin clubs: Attend local coin club meetings to get together with other collectors in your area.
Coin shops: Visit all the coin dealers in your area at least once to see how they deal with you on a personal level. Stick with the ones you like.
Coin shows: Take a day off to go to local coin shows. Meet new collectors and dealers from outside your area, and choose among lots of interesting coins. Don’t forget to bring your kids.
Educational seminars: Most major coin shows host educational seminars, presented by expert numismatists, on a wide range of subjects. You can find out about pioneer gold, U.S. fiscal paper, Civil War tokens, the history of the U.S. Mint, and much more. Use the question-and-answer period to get to know the experts and to pick their brains.
The American Numismatic Association’s Summer Seminar: Attend the American Numismatic Association (ANA)’s Summer Seminar at its headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Each year, ANA offers weeklong courses on a variety of useful subjects; past courses have included “Grading U.S. Coins,” “Coin Photography,” “Detection of Counterfeit and Altered U.S. Coins,” and “Rarities from Shipwrecks.” Class sizes are limited, and attendees have full access to the instructors. You can’t get any closer to the experts than this!
Specialty clubs: Join a specialty club. Meet collectors who share your interests by joining specialty clubs such as the Bust Half Nut Club (https://www.busthalfprices.com/bhnc.php), Early American Coppers (http://eacs.org), and the Colonial Coin Collectors Club (https://colonialcoins.org). Also, be sure to attend their annual meetings, usually held in conjunction with the ANA’s annual convention.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Many coin dealers and most collectors are extremely helpful people who are willing to answer your questions. In my opinion, there’s no such thing as a stupid question in numismatics; we were all beginners at one time. That said, don’t expect to walk up to a coin dealer at a busy show and strike up a conversation, either: A busy dealer can’t drop everything they’re doing at a coin show to answer an intricate question. Be considerate of the dealer’s time.
Affecting a Coin’s Value
One of the greatest misconceptions about coins concerns their value. Given a choice, many noncollectors will pick a 2,000-year-old Roman denarius over a U.S. $20 gold piece any day, even though the denarius is worth $50 compared with $2,000 for the $20 gold piece (see Figure 3-1). Age seems to be an important factor to noncollectors; in their minds, the older a coin is, the more valuable it must be. Therefore, a 2,000-year-old coin must be worth a million bucks! Nothing could be further from the truth.
FIGURE 3-1: Roman denarius (left) or $20 gold piece (right): Which do you prefer?
