Hey...sorry for asking so many question. I hope I'm not buggin ya to death. Last set until I get some more books.... 1. Is it illegal to deface money? (Coins/bills) 2. How do Double Dies occur? 3. What does Obverse mean? 4. How much would one 1943 Copper lincoln penny be worth? 5. I hate to narrow my collection down, but what do you think is best? Should I just choose 1 or 2 coins to specialize in? They're all like children....I love them all the same. Well...different things about different coins. Dollar coins are gorgeous but I also like all seated liberty coins. Shield nickels are awesome. Morgans are beautiful. Roosevelt dimes are my least fav. How boring! lol. What's worse is now I'm collecting baseball cards. 6. Which books would be the best to get for detecting counterfeit coins in general? What about a book that goes into detail of all coins and explains when and why and how? Thanks so much for your help! This is my only reading source besides the red book and the local coin dealer I talk to every once in a while. That guy had a tune up on his ferrari that costed him like, a couple thousand. I hope you guys are rich....I could use some more money.
No it is not, unless it is done with the intent to defraud. There have been entire books written about this subject, but a brief description of how a doubled die occurs would be as follows. It used to be that when a coin die was made a blank die was pressed into a hub which transferred the design to the die. Then both the hub and the die were heated or annealed to make them soft. Then the die was again pressed into the hub. Now with the second pressing, if the die & hub both were not perfect aligned in the exact positions as they were in the first pressing, then the die would be doubled. The obverse is what most people call the heads side of the coin. The reverse is the tails side. No way to say for sure, for as with any coin it depends on many things. But one could safely assume it would be at least 5 or 6 figures. As for the rest of your questions - you need to slow down a bit Get yourself a few generalized books on collecting. This will help you learn more about the hobby and deciding an area for you to focus on. Go visit amazon.com and look for books on collecting coins - they have a gazillion of them. Look for something that piques your interest and read what the book is about. I would also suggest you get yourself a copy of the ANA's Grading Guide and or Photograde - both these books will help you learn how to grade coins. There are books on counterfeit detection, but I would suggest you learn a bit more before going into that area.
Great advice. I would also suggest that you look for specialized books on any series that you would like to collect. There are books for each coin series and most of the mints. An investment in knowledge is the ultimate choice.
