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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;BooksB4Coins, post: 2362792, member: 36230&quot;]If indeed for the new of the new, I would be very careful about how I approach the idea of getting that almighty &quot;deal&quot;. It has been my repeated experience that the number one mistake collectors (especially new) make is in chasing what they believe to be a deal, be it for the thrill of getting something they believe &quot;cheap&quot; or, more often than not, day dreaming of easy money. There&#039;s an old saying that goes something like &quot;there&#039;s no free ride in numismatics&quot;, and if anything, this is what I would press. Unfortunately, there are no simple fixes. One cannot simply pick any dealer (face-to-face) and know that this person will treat them right and fairly, but on the other hand, is buying blindly on ebay (or an antique mall, flea market, etc, etc) any better or safer? Feedback is meaningless; some of the biggest dreck peddlers also just happen to have the highest ratings. There are a few very simple, easy, and obvious steps that sham sellers can take that usually allow them to both burn customers and keep high ratings. If you really want to help someone new, there&#039;s really only two options: you have to push education or press them find someone willing to do the work for them. If you focus your advice too much on price, you could remove the latter from serious consideration, leaving only the former and you should know by now that not everyone is willing to learn. New collectors focusing too much on price, or god forbid the almighty profit, is a recipe for disaster.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m certainly fond of that as advice, but here too you must tread cautiously; the simple fact is that people dying to buy coins are, well, dying to buy coins and not spend great amounts of time reading/learning. Like I keep saying, there&#039;s no simple fix or solution here.</p><p><br /></p><p>With that said though, there are many ways, other than buying costly books and spending years studying, one can learn while starting to build a collection. Lower value material can make for a fine first step, especially if of a type still in circulation as one can purchase higher grade examples while pulling different conditions from change for comparison. Hell, much can be gained simply from studying pocket change if one doesn&#039;t have the ability to take the more tried and true routes to handling as many (collectible-level) coins as possible. One can take a fairly large pile of cents, attempt to grade each coin, take notes of their initial &quot;grades&quot;, and set them aside to revisit perhaps a few months down the road. You may be surprised at how much such a simple and free exercise can really help in the long run. The point is that while learning and studying first may sound fine and dandy, there are relatively few willing to actually do it, and since the last thing this hobby needs is for someone to blow and lose a bunch of money on junk before turning sour on the hobby, you&#039;ll want to guide would-be collectors down the path of the least likely damage. If one insists on buying more costly material from the get-go, and doesn&#039;t wish to find a dealer willing to work with him, buying only certified coins, preferably CAC (the fact is that, while not perfect, they offer a level of protection above and beyond basic TPG certification that would be very valuable to such a person) would be a wise choice.</p><p><br /></p><p>Like I said before though, there is no way you&#039;re going to be able to tailor a small booklet into something that can or will directly help everyone. Trust me when I tell you that there are an unfortunate number of people out there who both hear and see only what they want to, and no matter what you say or do, it&#039;s not going to make any real difference to them. The best you can attempt to do is give them the tools with which they could help themselves. As with any tool, it is only as useful as the person using it, and some just have to learn the hard way.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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