New to Coins

I have always been intrested in coins in general and for the last two years have been attemting to take collecting a little more seriously.

But honestly i have had alot of difficulties starting up as a result of the mass of information out their.

To better understand this hobby with nearly no outside help other than these forums (which have been helpful) i would like to start reading a book on getting started. But after going to local bookstores i have become enlightened of the amount of "getting started" books. Is their a book that truly stands above others that also includes a very broad look at coins and does not specialize on specifics?

I figured i could have looked at reviews for the books, but what better source is their from the collectors themselves?

Any help picking a book would be greatly appreciated.

In addition any advice with coin collecting in general would be taken into account.

Thanks

 

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Welcome to the Forum!

2006 The Redbook is a keystone book for US Coin collecting. Should be able to pick it up for $15 or less.

 

Thanks, i will buy the book when i get around to it.

 

Hello bogsnj, and welcome to cointalk.

Like lawdogct said, the redbook is a great resource to have for collecting coins.

For broad based information there are a few decent books out there to get started with, coin clinic, 1001 frequently asked questions is a good starter book. Also, I would recommend books by Scott Travers, such as the Coin Collectors Survival Manuel - as these books may help you avoid many pitfalls of the beginner.

 

Thanks for all the help, hopefully the books will be very informative and will get me on the right track to becoming a collector.

 

I would suggest about 5 books...

The Red Book....But NOT as a price guide. about $12
Photograde about $14
ANA Grading Guide about $14
and 2 books on the coin topic that you would like to start collecting....if its Half Dollars...than 2 of the books on them....cents or dimes or nickels....the same.
There are many many good books....and I suggest them...but not just as you get started.
A friend of mine used to say that if you bought about 5 books a year you would have just the right number to read.

NOTE--some books like the grading guides aren't the kind you site down and read....they are more of a handguide while you are looking at coins.
So when you have some time go to places like Heritage and zoom into the photos so you see the coin and NOT what PCGS or NGC graded it...then take you books and try to grade it yourself--then zoom back out and see how close you were.

Grading will come with time...as will knowledge about coins.
You are starting right and I'm glad....read first....buy coins next
For books on many topics I suggest:
The Coin Collector's Survival Manual--I don't agree with everything the guy says--but I didn't write the book

Speedy

 

Thanks alot

 

bogsnj,

Just so you know you aren't the only one in your situation, I too have had a difficult time getting up to speed with no outside help other than books and the internet. Speedy's advice is very sound. I would just add a few things in case they aren't in the books:

Decide what your hobby goals are before spending a lot of money.

Specialize. There is too much to learn to know everything. So if you can narrow it down to one or two things like commemoratives, or silver dollars, or modern gold, or nickels or anything else it will help. If this sounds boring, maybe you really want to build a type set to start with to see a little of everything.

Realize that dealers are out to make money, not necessarily to help you unless you are pretty good friends. I just had another experience this week speaking to a dealer I hadn't dealt with before. He was more interested in convincing me to buy what he had to sell, which was about twice the amount I had to spend, than discovering what I wanted to buy, so no sale took place. The dealers aren't necessarily bad people, and usually there is no criminal intent but many tend to be bad listeners and not particularly great business people. A few will cut your heart out if they sense you are a rookie. So know what you want and approximately what you are willing to pay and stick to it.

 

As already mentioned several times now the Red Book by R.S.Yeoman and published by Whitman is the best for general information. If you are just starting out though I would suggest starting out with minimum investment in case you loose interest which happens to many individuals with all hobbies. Also, depending on your age you may find other items of greater interest later and money invested in coin collecting would be wasted. Then if you tried to dump it all you'ld find not much profit from a short term hobby. Again, not knowing your location if there are any garage/yard sales, estate sales, flea markets, resale shops in your area, start with them for coin books. Also, for coins. If the book is a few years old, the information is still valid, only the prises of the coins is outdated. At garage/yard/estate sales you should always ask if there are any old jars or cans or boxes of coins they want to get rid of. Most people don't put them out for sale but take them to a bank. I've really come accross some fantastic coins that way and at face value. I advise not starting with coins you have to buy every one. Find the types of coins you can fill a collection mostly from normal situations. Another thing you may want to do is ask freinds, neighbors, relatives if they to have any old coins they wouldn't mind parting with. Find coins you like and then spend the money doing further research on that denomination. And don't forget to join all the web sites on coins. For instance the PCGS web site, coppercoins.com, etc.

 

Not at Barnes & Nobles

 

Thanks for the advice, i have been collecting for about 3 years (not very seriously) and would like to "take it to the next level". Also thanks to some lucky investments made with the marine coins, prestige set, ect, i do have a good investment capital for any books.

But what you said about the garage sales did intrest me, for anyone thats tried anything like this, do you just ask the people if they have an old jar of coins or if they have any old coins they had collected? This sounds very intresting but i wasnt 100% on what you said to do.

 

You just have to be carefull of what you say and how you say it at garage/yard sales and same at estate sales. Never act as though whatever they have is worth anything. You have to be sort of like a slightly dishonest type. But as I've learned you MUST ask. Many people have jars, cans, boxes of old coins and don't know what to do with them. They normally don't want to put them out at such sales because they are afraid they'll vanish. They would rather take them to a bank for face value. You have to ask. If they say they'ld rather just take them to a bank, offer to sit right there and count them out and give them at least 1 1/2 of what the face value counts out as. Usually if you look like you could have a child or grandchild say that they are getting interested in coins and you'ld like to give this to them as a present. If your young, act stupid and say the truth that you are just getting interested in coins and would like to have this stuff as a starter. Say stupid things such as WOW would these coins make my friends at school jealous.
All I can say is that over the years i've accumulated virtually thousands of dollars worth of coins for face value at such places.

 

I was pretty intrested in this way of getting coins, does anyone else have any intresting methods of getting coins other than coin stores, bank or circulation?

 

I've been able to find coins at times in antique shops. Last year I bought 100 mercury dimes plus one proof roosevelt dime, all in pretty good condition, for $35. I've also found two civil war tokens [one appears uncirculated], some silver kennedy halves, silver eagles and a couple of bargain priced morgan dollars. I've seen commemorative dollars but they were overpriced. So check out the antique shops when you see them.

 

Ughh, I am glad you had good luck in antique shops. :headbang:

There is only one antique shop of decent size near me, it is the kind where different dealers rent out little sections or areas of a huge store for their stuff. About 5 of the dealers there have coins for sale. I think I have cracked their basic pricing method...It seems like they look the coin up in redbook and double the price, then tack on 3 or 4 dollars for good measure. Seriously, they all seem to stick to this. I tried talking to the cashier about coins, hoping he would see I sort of knew what I was talking about and would come down to a reasonable price, but he only offered me 10% off if I paid in cash, which is their normal deal for anything. Not that I was too disappointed...most of the stuff was common date and obviously cleaned, but there were a few things I would have bought if they would have been willing to negotiate, such as a few decent standing liberty quarters and a nice 1933 walker half. Oh well.

 

Seated,

Most of the places I visit are like that - basically space renters to junk dealers. I was lucky enough to go into an antique shop in Manteo NC last summer on vacation, and a local coin collector/dealer was renting space there to get rid of some of his excess coins. That's where I found the dimes. A local shop had about a dozen CWTs mixed in with some lucky penny tokens and basically priced everything the same. Two CWTs however were obviously in far better condition than the others, and I had a 20% off coupon! I see the same Redbook-times-two items much more frequently, especially Kennedy halves and morgan dollars in G-4 condition at EF prices. Occasionally there is a pretty good one for $10 or so and I buy it to justify the trip. It more or less comes down to a few lucky finds among all of the ripoffs. I see hundreds of medals and tokens but I don't really collect them or know what they are worth.

 

I too keep away from antique shops. They are in buisness to make money and with a low turn around on their merchandise they have to make up for it on each sale. Another great method I use is to find an old looking bank. go in and ask for a $50 bag of pennies. Take it home and spend lots of time going through them and then take the left overs to another bank. It pays to have a savings or checking account in several banks where you want to take the pennies back to though because some establishments want to charge you for cashing in the pennies. However, if you just deposit the coins in your account there should be no charge. At one of our local banks there is no charge up to $100 and then they start to charge a coin counting fee so I make sure I'm always in the below that.

 

When I started collecting , I read the Redbook from front to back a few times over. Getting the ANA grading guide book is also a good place to start. This will help you in NOT over paying for a coin. Forums like this are great places to learn and ask questions. Remember, we were all in your shoes once.

Attend coin shows to seeing a huge range of coins ranging from junk to $10,000+ coins. It's an eye opener as to what is worth money and what isn't.

Most importantly, have fun! What someone hates may be what you like!

 

I know i go to Commerce bank to get my penny rolls, i read that Just Carl said that you can get 50 dollar bags. I was wondering what the best way to get the pennys would be, does anybody go to a commerce bank to get their rolls, if so, how do they keep the bulk of their pennys.

Taking 50 pennies at a time in cheap wraps gets old...Does anyone know how Commerce stores their pennys other than the 50 cent rolls?

 

Not sure of what a commerce bank really is. I live around the Chicago area and we have pratically a bank on every corner it seams at times. I'm only surprised that someone hasn't put a branch bank in my back yard yet. There are actually several banks near enough to me to walk to. They are in every shopping mall and there are even smaller versions in some of our food stores here. I usually go to what is known as an unsavory type neighborhood bank to buy the $50 bags of pennies. They are a little scarry coming out of the place into a parking lot with high fences, lockable gates, barbed wire on top of the fences and an occational guard when the sun goes down but that's were I've always gotten the best coins.