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Message:: [QUOTE="kaparthy, post: 59933, member: 57463"]And that is all fine, but the fact is that some things are known to be true.  Avoiding problems coins -- cleaned and retoned, damaged 'bargains'  and of course fakes -- is important.  That said... The mainstream of numismatics tends to be the 19th and early 20th century up to World War I (a bit later in the USA).  Larger coins are more likely to appreciate than smaller ones because everyone likes larger coins.  Silver is more popular than copper, but more affordable than gold.  So, if you wanted to get into a collecting series that would appreciate, buy nice, large silver coins from 19th century Europe.  That is pretty easy advice. It applies to ancients -- which can be a pretty narrow field, or a broad field...  "Buy the nicest examples of the most popular coins." More difficult to generalize but true even so is that undiscovered rarities definitely appreciate in value.  This means that you pick some area of collecting and know it at the expert level and your catalog of coins becomes valuable because you are known to be a leader in the field.  When you can buy something otherwise common like an Austria 10 heller and give it three lines of detailed description, you raise the value of a common coin.  Of course, selling it means finding another fan of this same narrow area.  So, while these dusty little corners of numismatics appreciate in value, they are not liquid, not easy to sell out of.[/QUOTE]