What is Coin Collecting?
Coin collecting is the hobby or interest of keeping coins. Coins are kept for their designs, metal content and overall value. Coins that are most sought after are those that have only been in circulation for a short time. These coins are always worth more as over the years, coins are handled and lost as the overall quality of coins in circulation goes down. Coins can also be kept simply for appreciation as they are mini works of art; each one beautiful in it’s own way.
How do I start a coin collection?
Starting coin collecting as a hobby is probably one of the easiest hobbies to start. Anyone can start collecting coins just by searching your leftover pocket change. Asking close family and friends if they have any starter coins is another a good way to start a collection. Most people would be willing to share their coins to help you or your child start a collection. If they have doubles or coins they feel they can part with, they might be more inclined to do so if they know the coins are going to be kept and cherished by a new collector. There are still other methods to find rare coins for free such as coin roll hunting. This is the hobby of searching through rolls of coins from the bank in hopes of finding rare and valuable coins that may have been missed by other collectors and people who handled them. You can read more about Coin Roll Hunting in this POST.
Where should I start first?
Like any hobby it’s always good to do a little research before starting. A quick trip to Google.com will definitely help you start on your journey to being a coin collector. Reading a little bit about the items you would need to start and maintain your collection will be helpful in the long run. I recommend a few of these items:
- A pair of soft cotton gloves – First and foremost, gloves are important. You don’t always need to use gloves while handling coins, however when handling rare coins or expensive coins it is likely best to wear gloves. Gloves are helpful because they keep your coins from being touched directly on the metal by human skin. While coins can be handled on their edge or rim, the oils on your skin can damage a coin and cause it to oxidize and change colors ultimately lowering it’s value. Wearing gloves puts a barrier between your skin and the coin and prevents any scratches while handling them too. Even the smallest microscopic scratches can lower the grade of a coin so be careful!
- A magnifying glass or a loupe – Let’s face it, coins are small and I’m not getting any younger. Having a magnifying glass or a loupe is very helpful especially when you’re looking at dates and mint marks on small coins. Do your eyesight a favor and grab something to magnify those dates and mint marks. Some people even go as far as getting an electronic microscope for magnification of coins. This technique can be extremely helpful as you can see detail you might not be able to with your naked eye.
- A foam coin mat – When searching through your collection or searching through rolls of coins, it is nice to use a foam coin mat. Using a mat will prevent coins from hitting the hard surface of a desk. The foam mat will absorb shock as well as prevent coins from sliding away on an otherwise slick surface. I’ve even seen ones that are specifically designed for coin roll hunting that were produced by a Youtuber named RobFindsTreasure.
- A small storage box or jar to keep your collection inside. – Depending on the estimated size and scale of your new coin collection, it will need a place to be stored. It is important to give your collection a home so you can always keep it together. It happens too frequently that a collection might be kept in multiple places and things get lost and misplaced or stolen. Keeping your coins in one safe area will also help you keep your coins more organized. I prefer to use something such as a tupperware bin with a locking lid. You could even use something as small as a canning or mason jar. Anything with a lid that can keep air and other elements and pests out and coins in.
- A copy of the Official Red Book of United States Coins. – The Offical Red Book has been the go to source for coin general information and values for over 70 years. With high quality write-ups and images and mintage numbers, this coin guide is extremely helpful to collectors and is unlike any other coin guide. The details are extensive. Coins from all different points in history are featured in this book. Coins worth a few cents to coins worth millions of dollars are all documented in this book. It will help you determine not only the value of your coins but aid in identifying them too. The main focus of this particular guide is to help you identify and determine the value of your coin based on it’s condition. The Official Red Book also has extensive documentation of coin variations and errors. This is definitely worth picking up.
I have all the supplies. Now what do I do?
Start searching! An easy way to star a collection is to ask a family or friend to borrow loose change they may have been saving for awhile. The idea is to ask for their permission to search their change to find good coins. When you find rare, old or interesting coin in their saved up coins, you would remove the coin and replace it with a coin that is not rare or valuable of the same value. This style of collecting might be more fun for beginner as it will allow you to find different variations of different minted coins to add to your collection. The next quickest and slightly more advanced way to find coins is to search through coin rolls from the bank. Going to the bank to find rolls to search is a very quick way to grow your collection. You can search hundreds of dollars in a short amount of time while watching TV or YouTube videos. The basic goal would be to pull out coins that are abnormal or rare. Check the dates, mint marks and look for any errors. These errors could be a wide range of things. You can read all about coin errors HERE. Make sure to check all coins for silver content.
How do I keep my coins in good condition?
The best way for beginners to keep their coins in good condition and to not scratch them or ruin them is to put them in individual sleeves or hard plastic tubes to keep them from moving around. This also protects them from dust and debris that could risk scratching them. It is important to keep your collection from getting damaged by not moving the coins around and playing with them too much outside of a protected environment. If you do decide to handle your coins, it is best to use the cotton gloves we had mentioned previously in this article. These will prevent oils from your skin from getting on the coins.
Now that you know how to keep your coins in good condition, you might ask:
What kind of coins should I collect?
There are two types of ways to collect coins.
- The first type of coin collecting would be collecting by “type”. This would be the collection of the best example of a particular coin. If you chose to collect half dollars, you would collect one of each type of coin. This means you would seek out a Barber, Seated Liberty, Walking Liberty, Benjamin Franklin and a Kennedy half dollars.
- The second and most popular way to collect coins is by set. This simply means that collectors will collect a particular coin of every year and every mint mark that the particular coin was made. Collecting by set is a great way to collect and the most popular way.
Set collecting can sometimes be overdone by new collectors. They will seek out a set of coins that are very expensive and hard to find. Coins such as a morgan dollar, peace dollar, or any old large silver coins would likely not be a good coin set to start with. There are many coins in these sets and some of these coins have values that range from the hundreds, to thousands to hundreds of thousands.
If you start off by collecting a large set such as Morgan you will have many problems trying to do so. New collectors who start trying to collect such large and valuble sets such as these coins would likely run into the common mistake of buying the cheapest coins first. This is not the correct way to go about collecting these if you choose to do so. You would want to collect the most expensive coins first as they will raise in value much quicker than the more common and easily obtainable dates in the set.
It would be best to start collecting with an easier type set to obtain. Sets that would be easy to start a collection and are easily obtainable for face value at a bank:
- Pennies
- Nickels
- Dimes
- Washington Quarters
- State Quarters
- Presidential Dollars
These sets are easily accomplished as you are able to pull many of these coins from your own change.
I would like to grade my coins. How do I grade my coins?
The purpose of grading coins is to determine it’s cost. The other factors that come into having a coin professionally graded is to preserve the coins current state. For most purposes, coin grading is fit into the 1-70 point scale which is the most widely used form of coin grading (You can read about it here!). The end goal for grading coins would be to pick out the best coins you have in your collection to send in for grading.
The main reason you would choose to send in your most valuable and rare coins is the cost. Grading coins are not cheap. I wouldn’t make sense to pay $20 to grade a coin that’s only worth about $2, right? The pricing scale moves in ranges of value and quantity. The more valuable the coin is the more expensive the grading process will be. This also includes the cost of insuring the coin when shipping it through the mail to ensure it will arrive safely at the grading facility.
When your coin(s) arrive at the facility, they will go through an inspection process that includes several coin grading experts. These experts will look over your coin with magnification to ensure they are seeing all the details, scratches and every nook and cranny of the coin. Once the inspection is done, the coin will receive it’s final grade which can be reviewed by other experts to ensure the grade is an accurate representation of the coin.
The coin is placed inside a special clear capsule container. A sticker will be printed and placed in the plastic container and then sealed sonically with a special machine. This sonic seal will not allow air, dust, dirt or debris through it’s seal. This in turn prevents the coin from further oxidizing in the elements and will preserve the coin for generations to come. Grading the coin this way will preserve it’s value forever. Note; it is possible to remove a coin from a sonically sealed grading capsule and re-submit the coin if you feel the grade should be higher! Remember, you might mess up and get back and even lower grade! Be careful!
How do I sell coins?
Selling coins can take patience. You really have to know your grades to make sure you’re getting the best sale on your coin. You can look up the value of your coins online if you prefer, or you could use a United States Coins Red Book (here) which has been printed for nearly 75 years!! Pricing coins using the Red Book with graded coins should be self explanatory. Sell coins that are not graded by a professional service would be best to use your judgement.
Coin collecting can be an amazing and rewarding hobby.
Coins and money are a large part of our culture so collecting them only makes sense. Coin collecting in all aspects is a very fun hobby. It’s like a treasure hunt for collectible items that are worth money and will last a several lifetimes if taken care of. Coins can even be used as learning tools to teach about history and geography. I hope you learned a lot about coin collecting in this section. Have something you would like to add? Let me know!
Do you have a coin collection? I’d love to hear about it and see pictures!