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A Beginner's Guide to the World of Coin Collecting

If you are in search of finding a rewarding, exciting, fun hobby that you can easily enjoy, you don't need to look any further than the coins you have in your pocket. Millions of people engage in coin collecting, a hobby that can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Starting up a coin collection can be quite easy. In fact, you can begin building a collection with the coins you encounter every day.

The study of coins, as well as other forms of money, is known as numismatics. Numismatists (those who study coins and currency) take their love for analyzing money to various degrees. While many people collect and study coins as a pastime, many other people make being a numismatist a full-time career. Many such people devote decades of their lives researching and studying coins and giving speeches, writing books, and conducting seminars regarding their area of numismatic interest.

Starting up a coin collection need not be difficult nor costly. There are many inexpensive ways that people can collect coins. You may be surprised as to how much you will be able to collect by spending perhaps only a few dollars——or less——per week.

Perhaps one of the most widespread and popular methods of coin collecting involves seeking every date and mint-mark (a mint-mark is the little "P," "D," "S," etc., for example, that is isolated from other letters on coins) for which a certain coin design was struck. An example of such collecting would be to collect every Jefferson nickel from 1938 (the first year that President Jefferson’s profile was imprinted onto nickels) to the present, along with collecting one coin from each mint, for each year, that struck the Jefferson nickel. More recently, people have been watching their pocket change for the popular Statehood quarters. Statehood quarters are a good example of a coin type that would make a fantastic coin collecting project, because Statehood quarters are prevalent in circulation, and therefore obtainable at face-value.

Many people skip collecting coins of certain dates and denominations and instead collect coins bearing designs that appeal to their particular tastes. For example, let us say that you enjoy birds. In which case, you would seek out coins that bear depictions of birds——regardless of the coin’s year, denomination, or even the country of the coin’s origin. This type of collecting is called topical collecting. Topical collecting is a popular style of coin collecting, and can lend you a chance to integrate some of your other interests with your coin hobby——a sort of dual-purpose coin collecting.

Another very prominent style of coin collecting involves collecting all of the different designs minted from a certain denomination, or during a certain period of time in history. This is called type collecting, and it will allow you to purchase a variety of coins spanning years in time, often for a considerably small sum of money. For example, you could assemble a 20^th Century Type Coin Collection, which includes an example of each coin design produced during the twentieth century. (This could be restricted to the coins of a certain country, such as the United States, Canada, or Great Britain, for example). Another fashionable method of coin collecting involves building Year Sets. Such a collection would include all the coins produced during a certain year. An especially popular use for building such a coin set involves collecting all the coins minted during the year of a person’s birth, marriage, or graduation, for example.

Depending upon which period of time or denomination you wish to collect, type and year set collecting may be more easily done if the coins are purchased from a coin dealer, as only a small percentage of all coin designs ever struck are actually currently available through circulation.

As you may realize, there are endless objectives you could use to set your coin collecting goals. What is most important is to find a method that will suit your tastes. Of utmost importance in this hobby is to collect whatever you enjoy.

Once you have decided what you want your collection to consist of, you must go about finding those coins. The usual ways of acquiring coins is through circulation or by purchasing coins at a coin dealer.

Circulation consists of coins used in commerce, such as those encountered in pocket change, the rolls of coins your bank distributes, coins used in vending machines, even coins that are found on a sidewalk. Circulation is by far the easiest way to go about finding modern coins, because you encounter such coins every day. If you want to try to build your collection from coins found in circulation, one of the most efficient ways of finding coins is by searching through rolls of coins. Searching through rolls of coins allows a person to look at a large amount of coins en masse, and if what you were looking for does not turn up, you can simply cash in the unwanted coins and buy another roll. For the most part, circulation will yield mainly cents, nickels, dimes, and quarters dating back to the 1960s. While it is possible to locate cents and nickels of dating back well before the 1960s, it will be virtually impossible to locate any silver or other obsolete coinage in circulation, and you will generally only be able to find half-dollar and dollar coins at your local bank. You may be able to locate foreign coinage (most likely Canadian) and error coinage. Error coins are those that bear mint-manufactured mistakes such as a coin being entirely blank (there is no design on a coin), a design that is off-center, or design that has been unintentionally struck multiple times, resulting in the design or parts of it to appear doubled or tripled, to name a few of the many possible errors that can be found on coinage.

Another means of acquiring coins includes that of buying coins from a coin dealer. A coin dealer buys and sells coins, and is the primary source for acquiring old and rare coinage. You should be able to easily locate a coin dealer near you. Phone books and online telephone directories generally list coin dealers under the heading of "coins" or "coin dealers." There are also many reputable coin dealers who offer their services over the internet as well as through the mail.

You will want to get a hold of a magnifying glass. This will prove to be a vital tool, as there are many details on a coin that only a magnifying glass can easily make visible. Though you will want to purchase a stronger-power magnifying glass down the road, a common 3X to 5X magnifier should, at this time, be sufficient for viewing major details on most coinage.

Also, you should purchase a pair of soft, cotton gloves for coin handling. Gloves will reduce the chance of leaving smudges or other damage on your coins. Aside from gloves, though, there is a proper, universal, way to safely handle a coin.

It is vitally important that a coin collector know how to properly handle a coin. You should not let anything come into contact with a coin’s obverse (the front or "heads" side of the coin), or its reverse (the coin’s back side, often dubbed "tails"). You also want to prevent your fingers, which contain natural oils, from contacting a coin’s surface. The proper way to handle a coin is by holding it between the tips of your thumb and forefinger, with finger contact limited to the coin’s edge——not its obverse or reverse.

Above all, never drop a coin.

One rule that should be heeded in coin collecting is to not clean coins. Cleaning a coin strips away its original toning. A coin that shows its natural age and color, as opposed to a coin which has been cleaned to look shiny and new, is almost always preferred by collectors. Because of the alterations to its surface that a cleaned coin suffers, a cleaned coin is virtually always worth less than its uncleaned counterpart.

It is important to safely store your coins so that their quality will not deteriorate over time. Most significantly, you should store your coins in a cool, dry location away from chemical fumes. Notably, keep your coins out of the garage, basement, or attic, and be sure to keep your coins away from heat sources such as major appliances or a furnace.

While you will be able to find dozens of coin storage options at a coin dealer, many bookstores sell the ever-popular coin folders and coin albums. Many new coin collectors tend to like buying inexpensive cardboard coin folders. Coin folders are a wonderful way to store common, circulated coins, and are usually designed to hold every year and mintmark of a certain coin series, allowing for easy organization of one’s coin collection. However, cardboard coin folders typically allow only one side of a coin to be viewable. Some of the pricier coin albums are better suited for holding more expensive coin collections, or those which contain uncirculated coinage. The more expensive coin albums usually contain inert (non-reactive) materials that will not chemically affect your coins. Also, such albums tend to allow for viewing of both sides of a coin.

For those who want to visit a coin dealer to shop for coin storage options, there are several more coin-storage alternatives to be found. To name a few of the options you have for coin storage or display, choices range from inexpensive plastic coin tubes which can safely store a number of coins in much the same manner that a shrink-wrap or paper coin roll does, to beautiful (but expensive), flat plastic cases which can display a whole set of coins. There are also display alternatives for individual coins. They range from pliable, clear, two-inch square pockets called coin flips, in which single coins can be held, to more expensive coin capsules, which act as flat, airtight, plastic bubbles which can safely store coins for years.

As you begin to pay more attention to coins, you may have noticed that they are found in varying degrees of condition and preservation. Some coins are worn nearly smooth, while others appear to have just come from the mint. Some coins are scratched, bent, or cleaned, and still others seem to be in pretty good shape. It is important to realize the significance of a coin’s state of preservation. In fact, a coin’s state of preservation is most often a key factor to determining a coin’s value.

To ascertain and identify how much wear a coin has, coin collectors and dealers will grade their coins. Coin grading is a method whereby a person judges the extent of a coin’s wear. As a beginner, it is important to get a feel for coin grading, because coin grading will affect not just how you examine and judge a coin’s state of preservation grading will also help dictate the price you pay a dealer to buy a coin.

As a general rule of thumb, a coin that shows no trace of wear is dubbed "uncirculated." Such coins must never have been exposed to being used in commerce. Those who grade uncirculated coins will usually judge the amount of nicks, scratches, and luster on such a piece to determine an uncirculated coin's rank pursuant to a scale ranging from 60 to 70. A Mint State-60 coin is the worst example of an uncirculated coin and, in general, will posess many flaws, perhaps a large, prominent gouge or cut, and may not have much, if any, luster. However, the coin must not present any wear. A Mint-State 70 coin will literally be flawless, and is in such a sense considered to be "perfect." In between the numerical range of 60 and 70, coins will have incremental degrees of flaws, distractions, and luster.

Any coin that shows even the slightest indication of wear is referred to as having been "circulated," and will then be graded based on the amount of wear the coin presents. Such coins range from Poor-1 (a coin that is worn nearly smooth) to About Uncirculated-59, a coin which presents only the slightest trace of wear on its very highest points and, in most cases, gleans with mint luster. However, because the coin does display some degree of wear, it therefore falls just short of being classified as "uncirculated." As there are incremental differences between coins grading Mint State-60 and Mint State-70, there are also various degrees in the amount of wear possessed on coins grading between the grades of Poor-1 and About Uncirculated-59. As you become more educated about the realm of coin grading, you will find that the above information barely scratches the surface of matters involving coin grading. In fact, there are a myriad of issues and factors to consider when grading coins and, furthermore, you will soon realize that there are different grading standards often employed for each individual coin design.

A Proof coin is a special kind of coin which possesses mirror-like surfaces, frosted designs (on modern proofs), and extremely high detail. However, it is important to realize that "proof" is not a grade of coin. Rather, "proof" refers to a coin that has been produced through a special means of manufacture, whereby the mint takes great pains to strike such coins with highly polished planchets (the piece of round metal that becomes a coin) and dies (a die imprints the design onto a planchet). The coin is struck several times so as to allow for a greater show of minute details on the coin. Throughout the minting process, the coin is handled by gloved mint employees who take every precaution to protect the coin while it is being manufactured.

Mintage numbers are an important factor when determining a coin’s relative scarcity. A coin’s mintage refers to the actual number of coins struck for a certain denomination, date, and mint-mark. Generally speaking, the lower the mintage number, the more scarce a coin is. However, such logic does not always play out, for some coins may actually be scarcer than one might surmise by a certain coin’s mintage figure. Over the years, coins are lost, hidden, damaged, and discarded, therefore reducing the actual number of certain coins available. Another notorious reducer of coin populations is melting. Over the years, many silver and gold have been melted to retrieve and otherwise use their precious intrinsic metal content.

Below is a list of the various mints that the United States has commissioned (and in some cases, decommissioned) over the past two-hundred years. Here you will find the cities in which various mints have operated, their years of service, and the respective mint-marks for each mint.

Charlotte, North Carolina 1838-1861 "C"

Carson City, Nevada 1870-1893 "CC"

Dahlonega, Georgia 1838-1861 "D"

Denver, Colorado 1906 to date "D"

New Orleans, Louisiana 1838-1909 "O"

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1793 to date "P"

San Francisco, California 1854 to date "S"

West Point, New York 1984 to date "W"

While there is much more to learn about coin collecting, if you have read and understood everything in this article so far, you have enough information to allow for a good footing in the hobby. While taking time and patience, however, much of your learning will also come through trial and error, and experience. You can become a more experienced coin collector by reading books about coins, talking to those who have a knowledge about coin collecting, engaging your family members and friends with conversations about your hobby, and continuing to be interested and curious about the coins you see. As you will discover, coin collecting is a hobby that can last a lifetime, all along allowing you to make exciting discoveries, set and accomplish all kinds of challenging goals, and explore countless wonders. Welcome to the sensational world of coin collecting.

• Previous Posts:

• A Beginner's Guide to the World of Coin Collecting
• The 20th Century Type Set: The Ultimate Coin Collection

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