Getting into Gold Coin Collecting

Gold coin collecting can be an exciting hobby to take up. After all, who doesn't enjoy the lure of a shiny gold coin? Maybe you've watched movies where villains hunted down valuable Krugerrands, you could have a part of that too, only in your case, buying and selling old rare coins isn't an illegal activity! Still, it is a hobby with a unique and thrilling flare.

Some of the old rare coins are the most valuable, but most legitimate rare coin dealers warn openly that dealing in the gold collection is more of a neutral investment for your money.

Don't expect to land huge bargains or get great return on your Sovereigns or Brittanias. Dealers note that the market for gold has stabilized and won't provide rich profits, but they also point out that gold remains a reliable commodity.

Gold coin collecting can be made even more exciting when the words "unken treasure" appear. Common tales of pirate gold and sunken ships stir up all sorts of thoughts of riches and instant wealth for people, and some people know very well that sunken treasure and gold coin collecting can be an attractive lure.

It's quite true that sunken treasure does exist, and rare coin dealers or collectors are always excited when treasure coins are dragged upwards from ocean depths. That doesn't mean that every dealer claiming to have coins procured from sunken treasure has something you should invest in.

Banks are a great place to get additions for your gold collection hobby. For old rare coins, however, rare coin dealers are possibly your best option. Be careful, though. Some of the dealers also specialize in scamming customers.

While the overwhelming majority of them are honest and reputable, a handful of the dealers will give the entire industry a bad name. Be sure to do a good amount of research on the dealer you plan to use before purchasing any old rare coins.

Always look for dealers that subscribe to the Professional Numismatists Guild (commonly known as PNG) for your gold coin collecting. There are thousands of dealers all over the internet (and especially auction sites such as eBay), but these dealers do not always maintain the recognized code of ethics of the PNG.

The PNG requires many specific things for dealers to be members, making guild members a good choice to do business with. For buyers' convenience, the PNG has a dealer directory to ensure honest business.

There is a wealth of information on the internet for gold coin collecting, sunken treasures, the commodity of gold, and rare coin dealers. If you're planning to delve into the hobby of the gold collection, be sure to do your homework and research to know what you're getting into.

Start small, don't get too excited, and always be careful in what you're investing your money into. Deal with reputable dealers or individuals that subscribe to the PNG, and avoid bargain offers that seem too good to be true or ones hyped up with tempting tales of pirate ship gold.

Mike Selvon has a passion for coin collecting, and his portal has the best information on gold coin collecting. Visit his portal for your free gift and leave a comment at his coin collecting blog.

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How do I sell my Coin Collection?

So, you feel it is time to sell your coin long-time collection, or you have inherited a collection and you know nothing about coins and you want to sell them. As with the sale of anything, you want to make sure you get a fair price. Sounds simple enough, right? In the area of numismatics, when it comes time to sell, offers for your collection can vary greatly. The following tips will help guide you to getting a fair and reasonable offer. I will talk more on the term "reasonable" a little bit later. Coin Dealers, like any other profession, number in the thousands. From part-time single person businesses to huge companies that buy and sell millions of dollars of coins annually. And like other professions and industries, we have a few crooks. By following the general tips in this article, you should be in a better position to realize your collections value. So here we go!

First and foremost, you need to know what you have. Why? If you do not know what you have, how do you know you are getting fair value? If you have thousands and thousands of wheat cents, I am not saying you need to inventory them all. In fact, it may not be worth your time. The chances of finding a key coin are slim at best. But you should know how many pennies you have. How? Simply weigh them. Wheat pennies come to about 148 pennies per pound. The same rule can apply to other common coins such as pre 1965 Roosevelt Dimes and Washington quarters as you may just a bullion price on these. For the rest of your collection, you may want to count the number of each piece. Make sure you have a complete list of your collection.

OK, time to contact a dealer? No, not yet. How do you know you are getting an honest one? Before contacting a dealer, you need to do some homework. Does the dealer belong to any organizations and clubs such as ANA or BBB? How long has s/he been in business? What is their reputation? Check out a couple of dealers before you make that call. Also, just because they advertise in a major coin collecting publication, does not make them honest. I know of one dealer who advertises in a major publication and sells cleaned coins as BU/Unc originals. Most novice collectors would not know the difference.

Now that you have done some research, it is time to contact the dealer. This can be done in many ways. You can give them a call or if you are the shy type, just send them an email. In your email, identify yourself and that you have a collection for sale. Include in the email the inventory you completed. This may come as a shock to many, but some dealers will NOT want your collection. Many dealers specialize in certain types or series, or just may have too many coins in their inventory. If your collection is an average collection of common coins, you may be disappointed to learn that many, if not all of the big dealers simply do not want to bother with you. It is too time consuming to sort the common collections and the margins are too small. Do not fret, all is not lost. Many smaller dealers will welcome the chance to obtain your collection.

Many of these dealers work in mail-order only and may have only email or a PO Box as contact information. While they may appear shady, these folks generally are quite reputable. As before, contact the dealer and ask if they are interested. If they are not, just move on to the next dealer. If they are, ask them for their "buy price" list. Many dealers will publish a list of what they are willing to pay for certain coins.

After some hard work, you have a couple offers on the table. The offers are not anywhere near what you expected. Remember what I said above about a "reasonable" offer? Here is the painful truth. Coin Dealers are in business to make money. Sure, many of us chose this profession because we love it, but like everybody else, we still have mortgages, car payments, and college for kids, etc. Many people will look in the latest Coin Prices magazine to come up with an idea of what there collection is worth. Magazines such as Coin Prices are really a list of prices of what you can expect to pay a dealer for a specific coin, not what you can expect to get paid. Markups can range from 20-50% or more for smaller denomination coins such as wheat cents. As I mentioned earlier, some dealers just may not want what you have. Also, many, if not all dealers, reserve the right to revise the offer on inspection of the collection. If you think all your Morgan Dollars are BU, but they are really AU, this would make a huge difference in price. Grading is highly subjective. Also, for larger, more diverse collections, a dealer may spend a considerable amount of time reviewing the collection to ensure a fair price.

So, what to do? Take the best offer and run? Maybe, maybe not. If this is an inheritance, and you have no emotional attachment, you can just sell and never look back. If this is your collection of 50 years, well this may be painful. You can continue to contact different dealers and wait for a better offer. If you feel your collection is really worth more, you can always consign it for auction. With some of the fees the major auction firms charge, it may not be worth it. You can also try your hand at eBay but unless you have a strong feedback profile, many buyers will not bid on your items. You can also locate eBay members who will auction off your collection for you for a percentage of the take. Sometimes this works out well and sometimes not.

For now, let's assume you have a reasonable offer and you decide to sell. By the way, this should be a written offer sent via the mail or sent via email. Many times, the buyer may be located in another city/state. No buyer will send you a check until they have seen the collection. If the collection is large enough (many, many thousands of dollars), some buyers will come to you. If not, your very viable option is to send the collection to the buyer via mail. Yes, that is right, via the mail. Wait you say, that sounds risky. It can be, but if you take precautions, you will have no problems. First, package the collection up very well. Make sure there are NO LOOSE coins jingling around. The sound of jingling coins is music to a thief's ear. So be sure to wrap them up well and tight. When sending via the mail, the USPS is fairly safe. Usually, you will want to use USPS Priority Mail. Contact your local post office as you can usually get free boxes. Generally, you will want to use the Flat Rate options as you can ship up to 70 pounds for under $10.00 (not including insurance), but ask your local postal clerk for options. For your protection, you MUST insure your package and pay for delivery conformation. Include in your package an itemized list.

Most dealers will appreciate this as they will audit the shipment to the list. If all is well, you can expect a check in the mail in no time.

In summary, here are the tips :

1. Know what you have, prepare a comprehensive inventory
2. Research some dealers before you contact one.
3. Talk to dealers before sending coins to gage interest
4. Send your coins. Package them well and insure them
5. Review the offer
6. Collect the cash!

As always, happy collecting!

Keith Scott has been a collector for over 30 years and owns a small internet-based coin store at http://www.mountainviewcoins.com.
Visit his website, http://www.mountainviewcoins.com for a history of US coins, metal market updates and news about your favorite coins.
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The Good Old Days Of Coin Collecting

It’s too bad that budding young coin collectors missed out on the opportunities I had when I first started collecting coins. It was 1970 and believe it or not you could still find silver coins in change from time to time even though the US Mint stopped producing them in 1964.

I used to go to the bank on Fridays after school because they were open later that day with ten dollars and get two rolls of dimes and then go outside and look through each roll for silver coins for my collection. After doing this for awhile I got to the point where I could tell a silver coin just by looking at the coin’s edges and when I saw that familiar grey edge stand out in the roll my heart would jump a little as I never knew what coin was waiting for me.

Sometimes it was a run of the mill 1964-D that was so plentiful back then they were almost a nuisance but every now and then you would strike gold, I mean silver, and come across a Mercury dime in pretty decent shape. Jackpot! I would always replace the coins I kept with the same number of clad dimes being that I was an honest lad and would go back inside and exchange them for two more rolls.

At first the tellers wondered why anyone would do this and I think they suspected that I was trying to short change them but after explaining to them that I was a coin collector and that I replaced the coins I took out they were more than happy to help me. I think people were more trusting back then as they never bothered to count the rolls I exchanged.

I would always wonder why someone would turn something like a Merc into the bank instead of saving it but I guess it’s no different than the time a girl in my junior class sold me 10 silver dollars for the grand total of $10! She didn’t care as she was just going to spend them on lunch and I was more than happy to buy them from here for exactly her asking price. Unfortunately not being as astute as I am today I quickly sold them to another collector for $11 and patted myself on the back for making 10% on my money in just a couple of days.

My dad also helped my budding hobby out by having a bartender friend save out any silver coins he got in change and every week he would pick them up for me. I would get these for face value but some weeks there were several dollars worth of silver coins and I had to actually turn them away because I didn’t have enough money to buy them. I’m not sure what my Dad did with them but I think he might have kept them for himself after giving me first crack at them.

It’s been years since I got a silver coin in change and even though I understand that they haven’t been made for over 40 years it’s too bad that someone that is just starting to collect coins has to buy many of the coins I used to get at face value for their collection.

Maybe collecting the new state quarters provides the beginning collector with the same thrill I got when I was just starting out but in all honesty I have never really liked the clad coins and don’t think they are anywhere near as good looking as the silver coins I grew up with. Oh, how I long for the good old days of coin collecting!

For more information on how to collect coins visit us today at http://www.coincollectorsbasics.com where we have a wealth of information on coin collecting as a hobby

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