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Coins and stamps are tangible reminders of years gone by. Yet, while coin collecting is flourishing as a hobby, stamp collecting has gone by the wayside. Many families who inherit stamp collections are more interested in getting the collection appraised than continuing the tradition. You can’t collect something if you don’t know what it is.
Stamp collecting dates back to 1840, when the first stamp was issued in England. One of the earliest indications of stamp collecting is an advertisement from an English newspaper in which a young woman sought used stamps as a way to wallpaper her room. Soon, post offices discovered stamp collectors as good sources of revenue. From there, an unprecedented surge began.
There are no rules about stamp collecting. Some people collect stamps from a certain country while others focus on a motif, such as flowers, ships or buildings. Stamp collecting is a wonderful hobby because the collectors vary from those who have next to nothing to millionaires.
Unfortunately, stamp collecting has simply lost its appeal to younger people.
Coin collecting, on the other hand, is at its peak popularity. Rare or modern coins offer history that collectors can hold in their hand, and every period during the past 2,500 years is reflected in coinage.
Stamps disappear and become part of the ground. A coin can be dug up and, while new varieties of stamps are not really being discovered, new types of coins from all over the world are still being found.
While improperly stored coins can degrade and lessen in value, paper money can be damaged by handling, sunlight, or water. All are subject to flood, fire, or other natural catastrophe.
A stock certificate with 35% of it burned away is just as good as a mint one in terms of its value on the exchange. In fact, as long as ownership can be proven, it often doesn’t even matter if the physical certificate exists.
You can insure against these problems, and go to great lengths to assure proper storage conditions, but all of this costs money and adds to the cost of the investment, often for many years before there is going to be any return at all.
Today, coin collecting is one of the world’s most popular hobbies. Amateur collectors enjoy coins for their beauty, rarity and the stories behind them. Added to this is the excitement of searching for and finding specific coins and the challenge of identifying unfamiliar items.
Why is coin collecting thriving and stamp collecting dying? Coins are still being used and are still fascinating. It is an investment as well as a hobby. Coins continue to go up in value while many stamps are at the peak value they will ever receive. Furthermore, many are going down in value.
It’s amusing that people who collect coins, paper money, or stamps, always want some sort of “return”, at least somewhere in the back of their minds. These same people think nothing of buying a car for $20,000 and selling it three years later for $5,000.
Enjoy your hobby, and consider whatever you invest in it to be pleasure money, the same way you would count money you spent going to ball games, or dining out, or buying new clothes. Then, whatever you or your heirs get out of your collection is pure profit, whether it is more or less than what you originally paid.
After all, if you spend $20 a week going to the movies, you don’t expect to get anything for your $1,000 a year collection of ticket stubs, do you?
As far as investment in paper money in general, I would not consider it. If someone is buying notes and thinks how much will I be able to get when I sell it again, this person has the wrong hobby. Enjoy collecting for the pleasure and for the beauty of the notes as well as for the fun of it.
I believe there is room in both the collecting of coins and paper money for both collectors and investors.
The important thing to remember in investing in coins or banknotes is rarity and desirability.
So I believe there can be a case made that both collecting and investing in banknotes and coins are valid, and valuable activities.
Dean Brown
Are Gold Bullion Coins Worth It?
Today’s world offers investors plenty of avenues for their money. Which ones are worth it and which ones just bring unnecessary risks with very low chances of profit?
Many people have turned to buying gold bullion in order to improve their financial situations. We know gold has been around ever since man first started living in a society. Gold has grown together with mankind, or vice-versa, depending on how you want to look at it. Let’s have a look at the process of investing in gold bullion coins and at some of the factors related to such a financial placement.
What Are Gold Bullion Coins?
A gold bullion coin contains one ounce of pure gold. The quality or origin of the gold may differ, however, so make sure to only acquire gold bullions from respected companies that have dozens of years of tradition and trust. Here are some of the most popular and trustworthy gold bullion coins: the American Gold Eagle, the Australian Nugget, and the South African Krugerrand.
Buy Gold Bullions! – Here Is The First Reason Why
Listed gold bullion coins are internationally renown and recognized. When compared to gold bars, coins are much more versatile. You can travel to any part of the world and find a gold dealer who will exchange your bullion coins. Bars take longer to sell, as they need to be cleared and checked for accuracy and authenticity. Also gold coins are a lot easier to carry and store in a safe place. This feature becomes especially useful if you are storing gold inside your own home.
Gold Bullion Coins Are Easily Divisible
This option may not seem important at first, but it becomes really useful in some situations. If you just want to sell a small part of your gold reserve you can always just select a few coins, as compared to gold bars, which can only be sold whole. This increases the versatility of your gold reserve, as you will never have to worry about selling it all at once. You can also benefit from market forces. If the price of gold suddenly skyrockets you can sell a quarter or half of your bullion coins and still keep a safe quantity of the precious metal.
Gold Bullions Are Safe
I have saved the best for last. There is no more persuasive factor than the security offered by an investment. You can try to go with mutual funds, real estate investments, or overseas placement, but gold bullion remains one of the safest alternatives for your cash.
If you are looking for spectacular investments and immediate profits, maybe gold bullion coins are not the answer for you. On the other hand, if you are trying to establish an investment that offers equilibrium and security, gold coins should be right on top of your list! They are probably the best method you can choose in order to protect your wealth in the unfortunate case of an international economic collapse.
International financial problems are often brutally reflected in our everyday economy. Gold coins are almost immune to such incidents, as they have been for centuries. Even if many people associate gold bullion with pirate stories or fairytales, the fact is that investing in gold coins can make the difference between a smart and a risky financial position.
Dean Brown is the Author of “A Guide To Investing in Gold”, an e-book decidated to helping people understand that gold is an essential part of any investment portfolio. To get more details and enroll in Dean’s free mini-course on Gold Investing, go to http://www.goldinvestingbook.com.
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Michael Johnson
So you can’t wait to start collecting coins. Welcome to a fantastic hobby that will last your lifetime. Something you can pass on to your children and grandchildren.
Don’t Panic. It is a very simple hobby to begin. And will be a lifelong adventure as you grow your coin collection over the years. The thrill of a great find is absolutely terrific.
First off; go and visit the library. Pick up some of the standard reference books on coins. Some examples are:
A Guide Book of United States Coins 2006: The Official Red Book by R. S. Yeoman, Kenneth Bressett
The New York Times Guide to Coin Collecting : Do’s, Don’ts, Facts, Myths, and a Wealth of History by Scott Travers (Foreword), Ed Reiter
The Official Blackbook Price Guide to U.S. Coins 2005, 43rd Edition (Official Blackbook Price Guide to United States Coins) by Thomas E. Jr Hudgeons
Read them thoroughly along with as many other coin collecting books you can find. You will find a wealth of knowledge and ideas. There is no need to guess with so much information available.
Next search for and join some clubs and organizations. Stop by a local coin dealer to get the best recommendations. Become a member and buy some magazines to repay them for the help. Just talking to the people at a coin shop can really assist the beginner.
Now that you have done some homework, it is time to choose what you want to collect. You can have general collection but you will get much better results if you specialize in one area at a time.
Follow what interests you. Learn everything you can about your specialty. You can collect coins from a country or time period, or themes, like animals, airplanes or states. Silver dollars are popular as well as $100 gold coins, tokens, bi-metallic coins. You can collect coins with flowers on them or coins with a specific person. The possibilities are endless. Collect gold rush coins or commeratives like the olympics.
You can also collect coins for specific years like the birth of a child or a graduation year.
Study at your own pace and you will have more and more fun as your knowledge of coins grows. Once you learn what to look for, how to spot quality coins at bargain prices, how to speak coin, and bargaining for coins it is a great hobby for all. Getting a big “find” is one of the thrills that keep coin collecting interesting.
Get out there do a little research and have fun as you build a coin collection that others will admire.
For more info on this hobby be sure and check out our directory of great websites to assist the beginner. http://www.coinsandcollecting.com has quite a few resources for the new coin collector plus a directory of hand picked websites to find expert level tips.
Michael Johnson operates a variety of collectible websites and newsletters. Visit the website for many coin collecting tips. http://www.coinsandcollecting.com.
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Steve Renner
The Value of Gold in a Era of Paper Assets, Stocks, Bonds and Mutual Funds…
The facts behind the increasing demand for gold and silver, rare coins, and historic collectibles from the U.S. Mint…
No other substance on Earth embodies the unique characteristics of gold. Its yellow lustre and beauty are unsurpassed. Since the earliest days of man, it has been admired, molded, shaped, and worn as a symbol of wealth and good taste.
The romance and lure of gold is enhanced by its historic use as a storehouse of wealth. Gold’s value is intrinsic. Its value is a measure of the true wealth and the stability of national currencies the world over. Throughout history, every paper currency has become totally worthless over time; yet gold remains.
The precious metal gold cannot be created or destroyed or altered. It forever remains one of the most liquid investments with no geographic boundaries. Gold is bought, sold, traded, and stored in most parts of the free world with complete privacy. Likewise, U.S. gold coins enjoy many of these unique advantages.
In a world where paper currencies come and go, where paper money can be depreciated 25% to 30% overnight, the price of gold cannot be manipulated by any single nation or borrower. On the contrary, gold is the foundation of today’s world monetary system.
Acquiring U.S. gold coins put you in great company through American history. Prior to 1933, all U.S. paper currency was backed dollar for dollar by gold reserves. Today, paper dollars are backed only by a government promise, nothing more.
For investors who value gold, they recognize the safety, privacy and instant liquidity of U.S. gold coins. As official legal tender, each coin has a guaranteed weight and gold content.
Numismatic coins, especially the pre-1933 U.S. gold coins are highly sought after by asture collectors and investors for more than their pure gold content. The Saint-Gaudens, the Liberty series, and the Indian Head U.S. gold coins are admired and collected worldwide for their historical significance, beauty, and rarity.
Unlike gold that is minted by the tons annually, U.S. Gold coins minted prior to 1933 have a fixed and limited supply. No more will be minted ever and the older they get, the more highly prized they become as important pieces of American history.
We hope your visit will encourage you to add more rare and valuable U.S. gold coins to your collection and to learn how to build sets that will appreciate in value and be greatly admired for many generations to come.
Steve is the ceo of cashgcards-goldlynks rare/gold coin club he was the best isp in 1997 check out his about us page at http://goldlynks.tripod.com this article is free for distribution.
goldcoinsinfo@yahoo.com
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Robert W. Benjamin
Probably everyone at one time or another has collected coins. Some people save old wheat pennies they find in change and throw them in a jar. Other people collect state quarters, and some others collect certain coins like nickles or dimes, and try to build a complete collection over time. A lot of folks think coin collecting is the hobby of kings and truthfully, its often called that. A king may be able to build a giant collection of coins, but I promise you, that the small collection a young boy has that may only be worth a couple of dollars, is worth just as much to that boy as a Kings coins are worth to him.
I can tell you right now, anyone can collect coins and you dont have to be rich. In fact I have quite a large coin collection, and I have had a very low paying job all my life. There are a lot of ways someone can build a great coin collection over time, while still paying the bills.
Coins are so neat looking, I remember when I was a young boy, my grandad would go upstairs and open a safe we had, inside was a metal drawer containing some old Morgan and Peace Silver Dollars. My grandad would let me sit and play with the coins often. I would hold one by the edge on the table top and flip it on the side with my finger and the coin would spin wildly around on the table like a toy top. The coins were frosty silver or whitish colored and were beautiful to look at, they were large and heavy, not like the little coins we have today. I often wondered how many folks actually carried these things around in their pockets everyday, it only took a few of them to weigh quite a lot.
After my grandad passed away back in 1969, my dad sold the old silver dollars, I dont think he really wanted to, but my grandad had left the family farm pretty deep indebt, so dad had an auction and sold about everything except our house and the barn, to pay off the huge bills. It wasnt too long after that when dad got bitten by the coin collecting bug. At first it wasnt coins but paper money that got dad started. I remember dad saw an ad in the back of some magazine, where a guy was offering to pay $2 for every dollar bill you sent him that had a certain treasurers name on it, that name was: ” Joesph W. Barr “. My dad looked in his wallet at some dollar bills he had, and sure enough he had one that had the signature ” Joesph W. Barr ” on it. Dad took the dollar from his wallet and kept it in an envelope in his old roll top desk, and after checking his money for several days afterwards, dad found some more of them. Sometime later dad mailed the dollar bills to the address in the magazine ad, and sure enoug h he soon got a check for the dollars plus an extra dollar each. Dad continued searching and sending in them ” Joesph W. Barr ” dollar bills for awhile, then after a period of time, the guy no longer was accepting them.
Dad then started buying a few Indian head cents and some buffalo nickels. Then as he got older and money seemed to get a lot more tighter, dad quit buying coins and turned to a new hobby, doing sweepstakes. But by this time, I was hooked, I just loved the look of the old coins, the silver ones and the old copper large cents, they just seemed so neat compared to the boring coins of everyday use. Now as I am writing this article, I stumbled across an interesting article about the ” Joesph W. Barr ” dollar bills from the American Numismatic Association it said, the following: “At one time, it was speculated that the notes signed by Treasurer Joseph W. Barr would eventually hold a high numismatic value since he was in office for only 23 days in 1968-69. However, during that period, a total of 484 million notes were produced with his signature. The high quantity produced dictates that the notes will never be considered rare in our lifetime. Interestingly, in 1995, numismatic author Alan Herbert stated, “A $1 Ba rr note deposited in an interest-bearing account in 1969 would have been worth over $4.00, figuring 6% interest compounded annually. A circulated Barr note kept in a safe-deposit box for 26 years is worth $1 today.”
So that explains why that guy probably quit buying the ” Joesph W. Barr ” dollar bills, it seemed they might of been collectible for a little while, but they just never caught on. Today you can still buy them on eBay and other places, sometimes for slightly more than $1.00. Oh well, it is something that has stuck in my mind every since I was a little boy, I will always remember dad checking his wallet for ” Joesph W. Barr ” dollar bills. Now as I wipe the tears from my eyes, yes I am sad to say dad has been gone a few years now, and I still miss him very much, especially when I sit here alone and think about the times we spent together in the years gone by, oh well, at least its always great memories when it comes to you, dad.
Now as I regain my mental composure, if I ever had one, I want to say that I never lost the desire to collect coins. And as I got old enough to work full time, and live on my own I started and built a fairly large coin collection. I didnt have much money as I never went to college or trade school, and I have always had a job working as a laborer, so I had to fine ways that I could build up my coin collection cheaply.
One day, I was looking in the back of a Coin collecting magazine that I had purchased at a local news stand, and I found an ad where you could join a coin collecting approval service. They would send you certain coins once a month, and you could select the ones you wanted to buy and keep, and if you didnt want them all, just mail the others back to them, and the next month they would send some other coins for you to examine. What made this program better than the other approval services I had often seen was, you could tell them what type of coins you were interested in, and what price you were willing to spend monthly. I selected miscellaneous U.S. coins, everything from old large cents from the 1800s to silver mercury dimes and buffalo nickels etc. And I chose to only spend $20 a month, for me this was perfect and for about a year or more I stayed in the program and over time I got a nice bunch of coins from them, then something happened and the company folded or went out of business, as I never received any more coins from them and I no longer saw their ad in the magazines.
Overtime I discovered other cheap methods to aquire some nice coins, one of the methods I still use, is something that anyone can do to start building a nice coin collection. Just start searching and examining your pocket change, I still find wheat pennies and silver war nickels, and many pre 1960 nickels, and sometimes a silver coin in pocket change. One time about two years back, I was at a local store and got some change back, I noticed two of the quarters I received looked kinda white in color, examining them closely after I got back home, I discovered they were both pre 1964 silver Washington quarters. I figured somebody must of needed money to buy some cigarettes or milk or something, and must of used some of their old coins, I was just lucky enough to had been there at the right time and place to get them in my change.
One place to find a lot of nice coins is to go to different banks and buy rolls, search through them carefully, and you will be surprised of the neat finds you may come across, plus just add a few out of your pocket change to replace the ones you want to keep from the rolls, and you can turn them back into a different bank for some different rolls of coins to search through.
Another place that is fairly good for finding some rare coins is at local flea markets, be careful though as many of the folks at these places are very aware of a coins value, and they often ask for much more then what the coins are worth. Read up on the coins you are interested in buying, or better yet, take along a pocket coin price guide with you when you go to buy coins, its better to be thrifty then foolish.
Anyway, now after collecting coins for fun over the years, I have almost every Lincoln cent that was made from 1909 up to present, and I have every Jefferson nickel from the first one that was made in 1938 to present, and I have a nice sized wooden chest full of miscellaneous U.S. coins, including silver dollars, mercury dimes, buffalo nickels, Large Cents and many more unique and rare coins. I figure the coins will make a nice gift someday, something to leave to my daughter and her children, and maybe I can spark that fire in them, that my dad started in me, the joy of coin collecting. So start checking your pocket change today, you just never know what rare finds you may come across. There are several different types of computer software that are made for coin collecting. One program that stands out is Coin Collector Professional , it is made for any coin collector, from novices to professionals, and it cost under $20. Coin Collector Professional may be downloaded and tried for free at this website address:
http://www.rb59.com/ccp
By Robert W. Benjamin
Copyright © 2006
You may publish this article in your ezine, newsletter or on your web site as long as it is reprinted in its entirety and without modification except for formatting needs or grammar corrections.
Robert W. Benjamin has been in the software business on the internet for over 5 years, and has been producing low-cost software for the past 25+ years. He first released software on the AMIGA and C64 computer systems in the late 1970s-80s.
RB59 Software
http://www.rb59.com/software
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Michael Russell
First of all its very import to distinguish “collecting coins” from “numismatics”, which is the scientific study of money and its history. The act of collecting coins is something more complex because it can have many different conceptions and meanings.
It started, as an art, in the fourteenth century with Petrarch, while collecting them because of their value, as a way of saving up, goes back to the beginning of capitalism. Everything started when Petrarch realized that the coins were much more than simple little golden medals, he saw more than material value in them and decided to start a personal collection. As everything Petrarch invented has become popular, the art of collecting coins started to be known as “the hobby of kings”.
There are basically three levels that coin collectors can go through: casual collector, curious collector, and advanced collector. The casual collector collects coins just because its fun and because he likes it. Even a kid could be a casual collector. They usually dont spend a lot of money looking for rare coins or preserving them, therefore their collection is made of random coins they collect by chance. When the casual collector starts to get more involved with his collection and start to want to go further, he becomes a curious collector.
Curious collectors usually go look for non-circulations coins and they can spend a little money on them, buying them on Ebay or other collection sources. They also start to study more about the art of coin collecting, buying books and frequently visiting coin themed web pages. If the curious collector starts to take his hobby as a way of life, he becomes an advanced collector.
Advanced collectors usually focus on some specific interest, and they spend a lot of money in order to make their collection bigger and bigger. They can collect only coins that were in circulation in a certain determined period of history for example, or they can get specialized in a single country, or maybe focus on a specific coin theme, such as presidents or nature elements.
Apart from what kind of collector you are, or even if you havent even thought about collecting coins, the art of hoarding coins just for pleasure and fun is itself a quite interesting hobby activity.
The hobby can become a business. When that happens, the collector goes into a completely different world where people are capable to do such crazy things to reach their objectives. Professional collectors can spend real fortunes in order to achieve important, sophisticated and rare pieces to their collection. When a personal collection turns out to be an historically and politically valued one, it usually becomes part of a museum or an art gallery collection after the owner passes away. To reach this level of specification is quite difficult, because it demands time, patience, money and the most important thing: the collector must love what he does; otherwise the collection will always be an amateur one. That doesnt mean you have to become a professional collector to make it worth it. Doing that just for fun is already a great way of spending quality time.
So don’t think twice if you want to start to hoard coins, it can start as a small thing, but who knows you might become a professional and famous collector.
Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Coin Collecting
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While learning to clean old coins, you should experiment with different techniques to find a method that works best.
As you begin to clean ancient coins, experiment to find methods that work best for you. It will probably take a while to get the process right. The first coins that you clean should be coins that you dont mind ruining. This is part of the learning process.
When cleaning an ancient coin, patience is the key. Work as gently as you can. You goal is to remove dirt and encrustation without damaging the surface of the coin, or the coins patina (a thin, greenish film of corrosion that can build up on oxidized areas of a coin).
There are a variety of tools that you can use to clean a coin. They range from liquid soaks, to tools that you can make at home, to manufacturers brushes of various sizes, to brass tools. When it comes to protecting your coin during cleaning, plastic and wooden tools are best. When a metal tool must be used, use brass, because it is a soft metal. Something to remember about metal tools: never use a metal that is harder than your coin. For example, never apply a steel tool directly to the surface of a coin.
Dental tools, toothpicks, tooth brushes, and straight pins make good tools for cleaning coins. A trip to a hobby store can score you a set of brass tools. Strips of brass can be found at metal supply and hardware stores. You can shave and file these into points and edges that can bed used to get into those tight areas between designs and inscriptions.
When you are ready to work, set up a clean and spacious work area with good lighting. Have on hand a supply of water for rinsing. Before cleaning a coin, submerge it in liquid to soften the encrustation on its surface. In some cases, you may find that soaking alone cleans a coin. Wiping it with a soft rag after you remove it from the soak may be all that you need to restore some of the coins original beauty. Distilled water, lemon juice, calgon water softener, vinegar, baking soda, and olive oil are surprisingly useful. These methods can remove dirt slowly, and you may have to soak a coin anywhere from a few hours, to a few weeks. To remove olive oil residue from a coin, soak it in Tri-Sodium Phosphate, TSP can be found at paint shops, and home repair stores. Other metal degreasers can be used, but remember to test new substances out on your least valuable coins before applying them to your most valuable coins.
After you have soaked and rinsed your coin in fresh water, gently work with your brushes and small detail tools to clear remaining dirt and encrustation from the surface. If some spots are not lifting, repeat your soaking techniques. If these problem areas still persist, do not try to force them off with a tool. It is better to leave a coin as it is, than to damage it by force.
After you have cleaned your coins, you may want to apply a coin sealer, or a wax polish to preserve the job that youve done. Check the usage labels on these products to make sure that they are compatible with your coins. Look for these supplies in numismatic supply stores, internet stores, or mail order catalogs.
How to Collect Rare Coins For Fun and Profit
Time has proven that collectors tend to make the most money in rare coins because they search out “undervalued coins” and buy during market lulls. Buying in todays market climate offers you superb upside profit potential.
PUT IN PERSPECTIVE – Rare coins have an extremely limited, fixed supply which has historically increased in value when demand overwhelms availability. This fact is documented in the “Dow-to-Gold Report.” It clearly shows how rare coins go up as well as down in price with varying market cycles. We believe the most successful Rare Coin portfolios were built in down markets by systematically assembling a variety of choice, rare, and desirable coins, with a three to five year, or longer, holding period in mind.
HAVE A PRECISE FOCUS – Thousands of coins have been issued over the past 200 years. Very few collectors are experts on more than a few types of coins. For that reason alone, its important to build a relationship with a firm that employs a team of knowledgeable Rare Coin Specialists and Numismatic Experts that are recognized as pillars of authority throughout the industry. Together, we can help you define your areas of interest, your investment goals, and our team of specialists can then guide you to a specific area of U.S. Coins designed to be both profitable and extremely enjoyable.
THE FOUR FACTORS FOR SUCCESS – To profitably build a balanced and diversified Hard Asset Portfolio, you need to know the driving forces behind the U.S. Rare Coin Market:
* STRONG DEMAND – We recommend U.S. Rare Coins that have a broad base of both active investors and collectors. The more wealthy, sophisticated, and avid the base of buyers in an area, the more successful your portfolio should be in the long run.
* SMALL SUPPLY – We recommend U.S. Rare Coins of the highest quality for the date that you can afford. These are always the hardest to find, most desirable collector coins and have historically been top market performers. In our opinion, these coins are always in demand by collectors and will be the easiest coins to liquidate later, and turn the best profits.
* STRONG PERFORMANCE HISTORY – Take the time to review the price history of any rare coin you purchase. Rare coins that have a good history of 200% to 300% price increases during recent bull markets, usually offer you an excellent profit potential in the next hot market. While past performance is no guarantee of future value, undesirable coins are losers in any market. It is of utmost importantance to remember that each rare coin must stand on the value of its own individual merit related to grade, price, eye appeal, and rarity.
* GENUINELY RARE – Finally, we recommend you acquire a selection of Genuinely Rare United States coins. There are fundamentally two ways to determine a coins rarity. That is “Condition Rarity” and “Absolute Rarity.” Condition Rarity is a coin that is rare in higher grades. Some coins are common in worn, circulated grades, yet there could be only five coins known to exist in higher mint-state grades of MS-63 to MS-65. Absolute Rarity is a coin that is rare in any grade. These are truly desirable gold coins that are hard to locate and acquire in all grades. These few coins that are Absolutely Rare in any grade are the “Blue Chip Recommendations” of the U.S. Rare Coin Market.
Steve is the ceo of cashcards-goldlynks rare/gold coin club he was the best isp in 1997 check out his about us page at http://goldlynks.tripod.com. This article is free for distribution. You can sign up for a free email course on buying and selling rare/gold coins for profit by sending an email to goldcoinsinfo@yahoo.com. Membership of the coins club is free to join at http://goldlynks.tripod.com
Very few things tell more about a country in fewer words than the coins it produces. Coins hold a wealth of information on their small faces, from the year of their birth to the language spoken at the time, from the metals a country holds valuable to the cultural influences and historical figures that its people hold valuable. Coins can also be strikingly beautiful in their own right, with the top designers of a nation striving to have their motif chosen for immortality on the face of a coin. With so much information and beauty contained in so small a package, it is no surprise that coin collecting has been a hobby nearly as long as the concept of coins themselves. An understanding of the long history of coin collecting, once known as “the hobby of kings,” will make this pastime even more enjoyable.
The Origin of Coins and Coin Collecting
The hobby of coin collecting began nearly as soon as the first coins were minted in Asia Minor, around 650 B.C. Before that time, gold and silver ingots were the most common form of legal tender. Because there was no standard, however, each trade necessitated a careful weighing and examination of the precious metals being offered, and it was easy for unscrupulous merchants to pass off a lesser quality of gold in trade. Coins, which were printed on standardized weights of precious metals and stamped with a government guarantee of value, was the answer to this unwieldy, easily sabotaged trading process. Within one hundred years, the concept of coins had been adopted by all of the major trading cities in the civilized world.
At the beginning, coin collecting had a very practical reason – there were no banks in which to store money. People hoarded coins as a way of safeguarding their wealth. Those coins that were especially beautiful were hoarded the longest, often being passed down within families.
Coin Collecting in Renaissance Times
Modern coin collecting, where the coins are viewed as a work of art as well as a collection of valuable legal tender, is widely thought to have begun with Francesco Petrarca, or Petrarch, who is often called the father of the Renaissance. Although there is reason to believe that Roman emperors and citizens paid prices higher than face value for coins that were no longer in circulation, Petrarch was known to be an avid collector, and often spoke of his collection in his writing. During the Renaissance, popes and nobility began collecting coins for their artistic and historical value, and the name “the hobby of kings” was born. So popular was the pursuit and trade of ancient Greek and Roman coins in this time period, that a brisk business in high-quality counterfeits sprang into being. Today, these counterfeits even have a high value, due to their age, quality, and historical significance.
Coin Collecting in Modern Times
Coin collecting has been a favorite pastime of many people with a reverence for history, including U.S. Presidents Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. The development of two large coin organizations in the mid-to -late 1800s, the American Numismatic Society (ANS) and the American Numismatic Association (ANA), helped spark American interest in building and maintaining a coin collection. Today, there has been an explosion in American interest in coin collecting, in large part due to the ease and availability of obtaining interesting coins. The U.S. Mint has successfully increased interest in starting a coin collection through the minting of specialty coins, such as the bicentennial half dollars released in 1976 and the current release of quarters commemorating each of the fifty states.
Coins and Coin Collecting, www.coinsandcoincollecting.com Your guide to getting the very best from your coin collection. Coin collecting can be started as simply as getting a special state quarter for your birthday. Or you may use a coin collection to help you visualize the history of your state or country.
You may have heard the terms proof coin and un-circulated coin, but what’s the difference between these two? To understand the difference between a proof and un-circulated coin, let’s first answer the question, “What is an un-circulated coin?”
Un-circulated means a coin has not had any wear, such as the wear a coin might experience when it is used in commerce. Handling a coin, as well as improperly storing a coin, can result in wear on the surface of the coin. This wear, even if very minor, will cause a coin to no longer grade un-circulated.
When coins are minted they often bump into each other and receive small nicks and abrasion marks during the production process. These marks also occur as coins are transported in large canvas bags. These marks, sometimes called “bag marks”, are more noticeable on larger coins, such as half dollars and dollars. Typical “bag marks” do not keep a coin from grading un-circulated. However, they can be an indicator of how high of a grade the un-circulated coin might receive.
Current accepted grading standards provide for a range of un-circulated grades, from the grade of MS-60 to MS-70. MS60 would be a lower grade (yet still) un-circulated coin with normal bag marks for that type of coin. Anything below MS-60 would not be considered un-circulated. MS70 would be the perfect “ideal” coin. Some coins are rare in grades MS65 to MS70, and even unheard of in MS70 grade. (The attribute “MS” stands for “mint state”.)
A newly minted proof coin is also un-circulated, however it is the way it is made that causes a difference in appearance and qualifies it as a “proof”. To understand this, let’s look at how coins are made. Coins are produced when two dies strike a blank piece of metal with tremendous force. One die is engraved with the front (obverse) design for the coin. The other die has the back (reverse) coin design on it.
A proof coin is made with a specially polished and treated die! By treating the die in a special way, the coins it produces have a different appearance. Modern technology allows the high points on the coin design to be acid treated (on the die). The background (field) design of the coin die is polished, resulting in a mirror-like look on the coin it strikes. This gives the finished coin a frosted look (frosting) on the raise parts of the design, with a mirror like finish on the background. This contrasting finish is often called “cameo”. On some older coins a cameo appearance is quite rare. The attribute “CAM”, when added to a coin’s description, means cameo appearance. “DCAM” means deep cameo, and indicates the cameo appearance is strong and easy to observe.
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