expensive or inexpensive as you want it to be. Coin collecting teaches history, geography, observational skills, organizational skills, and analytical tools — all without your thinking about it. If you buy properly, coins can be an excellent place to park your money for a rainy day, and if you buy the right coins and the market improves, you may even be able to make a profit on your collection someday.
About This Book
The purpose of this book is to turn you into a world-class coin collector in as short a period of time as possible. The chapters are laid out in parts that focus on particular areas of numismatics (the study of coins), including getting involved in coin collecting; deciding what to collect; protecting yourself and your coins; and grading, buying, and selling coins.
This book is designed to appeal to collectors at every level, from beginner to advanced. We’ve written it in everyday English without overloading you with a bunch of coin terms. (If you run across a term you don’t understand, you can find a great glossary in the back of the book.) This isn’t a hardcore coin book but a great general reference that points you in different directions for further investigation. You can always come back to this book to regroup, resupply, and ready yourself for something new.
Perhaps the most important goal of this book is to get you excited — and to keep you excited — about coin collecting. Coin collecting has been an important part of our lives for many years, and we hope you’ll develop a sense of appreciation for the hobby as well.
No one needs coins, but if you decide to collect them, you certainly need this book. We wish we’d had one like it at the beginning of our collecting careers. Coin collecting can be a confusing maze of choices sprinkled with little traps along the way. Sure, you can go it alone, but why not make your journey into numismatics a lot easier by picking our brains and learning from the mistakes we’ve made over the past several decades?
Coin collecting is a huge, wide-open field. Think of this book as a road map to help you navigate. Different issues may become important to you as your collecting evolves, so keep this book handy, and refer to it often.
Foolish Assumptions
We don’t make many assumptions about you, but we do assume that at least one of the following statements applies to you:
You’ve never collected coins, but you’re interested in getting started, and you don’t know where to begin.
You’ve collected a few coins here and there, but you want to get serious and take your coin collecting to the next level.
You’re an advanced coin collector who loves to read every book on coin collecting, just to make sure you haven’t overlooked something critical.
Coins, schmoins — you’re a collector of For Dummies books. You own every book in the series, and you’re not about to let this one be the first gap in your collection.
Icons Used in This Book
Throughout this book are handy road signs, called icons, that point you toward valuable advice and away from potential hazards.
Beyond the Book
This book’s Cheat Sheet offers lists of useful coin dealers, auction houses, websites, and magazines for numismatists. You can get it simply by going to www.dummies.com and searching for Coin Collecting For Dummies Cheat Sheet.
Where to Go from Here
This book is a reference book, which means you can dip into it when you need a piece of information; you don’t have to read it from beginning to end. (If you want to read it from beginning to end, of course, we won’t complain!)
If you’re getting started with coin collecting, Part 1 is a good place to begin. If you already know the basics, and you’d like to start looking at specific coins to add to your collection, parts 2 and 3 are for you. If you’re ready to buy or sell, check out parts 4 and 5, respectively. And if you’re short on time but still want some fun and useful information, you can’t go wrong with any of the chapters in Part 6.
We hope that your journey through the world of coin collecting is as much fun as ours has been!
Part 1
Making Heads and Tails out of Coin Collecting
IN THIS PART …
Understand why coin collecting is such a fun and exciting hobby and why millions of people now call themselves coin collectors.
Learn why finding out as much as you can about coin collecting is so important — not just to protect yourself as a consumer, but also to give you a big advantage over other collectors
Take advantage of the wholesale pricing that’s available to the smart collector.
Explore buying strategies and how to best plan your collection so that you maximize the money you spend on, well, money! The right strategy saves you time and money and increases your enjoyment of the hobby.
Check out a number of options for storing your coins so that they remain as beautiful and as valuable as they are today.
Deal with security issues and learn how best to protect your coins from theft and harm.
Chapter 1
Welcome to the World of Coin Collecting
IN THIS CHAPTER
The first actual coinage as we know it today dates back to the Lydian civilization of about